


The Bell of the Dragon's Love

by primalrage



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alcohol, Bathing/Washing, Drunkenness, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Sex, Japan, Japanese Culture, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Post-Recall, Probably the only thing I've ever written that isn't angst, Should be canon compliant, wholesome but also porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-05-25 08:23:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 52,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14973101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primalrage/pseuds/primalrage
Summary: Overwatch has been recalled, but McCree is struggling to move forward and forget his past. When Genji announces to the team that he wishes to travel to Japan and ask Hanzo to join them, McCree is quick to volunteer to tag along. He and Genji are all that remains of Blackwatch, and he imagines it will be like the good old days. McCree is completely unprepared for how much Genji has changed and grown since they last worked together. He is equally unprepared for how much he falls in love with the city of Tokyo, as well as how much he falls in love with Genji's elusive brother Hanzo.





	1. The Proposition and Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read, there are a few important things to know -
> 
> In case the timeline is not clear, this story takes place where we are currently in canon. Overwatch has been recalled, and in my version of things, the former members have all crawled out of hiding to reassemble. This was specifically inspired by the Retribution event, so it should be compliant with the lore that has been released so far.
> 
> This was mostly inspired by the newspaper article released in the Overwatch official twitter account titled "The New Peacekeepers" - basically talking about how McCree stopped a robbery at the Rikimaru Ramen shop. Like - why was McCree doing vigilante work in Japan after Overwatch was disbanded?? This is kinda exploring my interpretation of that incident.
> 
> While the majority of this story is not mature in content, there are scenes later that are very mature, and on the verge of sexually explicit. So if those kinds of things make you uncomfortable, then this is definitely not the fic for you.

“I would like to return to Japan and invite my brother to join Overwatch.”

McCree had been drinking a glass of water, but he choked on his sip, nearly spraying a mouthful out across the table. Beside him, Anglea's jaw clenched with a click of her teeth, her pale brows drawn in a severe crease over her eyes. Coughing, he tried to meet her gaze, but she – and everyone else in the room – was staring unblinking at Genji, whose metallic head was bowed in reverence, waiting for a reply.

No one knew how to handle this new Genji, who was patient and gentle and peace-loving. Even in these short few days back together, the change was impossible not to notice. It put everyone on edge. Could they express their honest opinions without him exploding in anger? Would he disappear to brood if there was any dissent? To McCree, it felt like the whole room was holding its breath and waiting for Morrison, Amari, or Reyes to voice their opinion. How could Overwatch expect to get anything done without their three leaders? They were like a room full of siblings left without their parents or a babysitter.

McCree alone knew what Reyes would say, were he still alive. He had spent years trying to convince Genji to bring his brother onto the team. Genji had always adamantly refused. For good reason, in McCree's opinion.

It was Winston who finally spoke up, pushing his glasses up his flat nose with a leathery finger as he began to ramble on about the Petras Act and how he couldn't start sanctioning official missions yet. The others seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief that someone had stepped up during this first meeting together, and who better than Good Ol' Winston, who had requested the recall in the first place? No one else wanted to volunteer to be the one to tell Genji 'No.' McCree didn't know what he expected Genji to do in response to the rejection. Genji was an angry, bitter man, but he wasn't stupid; there was no way he was going to pick a fight with their newly self-appointed, gargantuan Silverback gorilla leader. In that moment, though, the changes in Genji were even more obvious - he thanked Winston for his consideration and sat back down at the table.

The conversation moved on. Winston pulled up several maps and articles to discuss recent events across the globe. McCree wondered what everyone else was thinking about. Only Brigitte seemed to be paying Winston her undivided attention. She was sandwiched in a seat between her father and her godfather, taking furious notes on everything, her eyes bright with interest. She had been a kid the last time McCree had seen her. Now that she was a beautiful adult sitting in on official meetings, McCree felt ancient.

When Winston was finished, he passed out copies of the dossier, and McCree nearly laughed. It felt so damn good to be back here with these people after years of being on the run. He rolled the papers up, shoved them in his back pocket, and strolled outside for a smoke.

Gibraltar was beautiful. It was early evening, the sky was dusky, and seagulls circled overhead. McCree breathed in, and the smell of the ocean filled his lungs. He had once hated Gibraltar for how isolated the base was, but now it was a relief to be so far from his bounty hunters and wanted posters. And there were countless good memories that filled the island like a visceral fog; as he breathed in the seasalt, those memories settled in his chest as well. From his back pocket, the other one that wasn't currently stuffed with freshly copied papers, McCree pulled out a cigar. The breeze made lighting it a fight, but once he was able to take the first few puffs, he realized he missed the pure ocean air. He watched the trail of his smoke float out over the rocky precipice, his eyes struggling to follow it over the backdrop of feathery clouds on the horizon.

Then he saw the figure perched out on an overhang like a gigantic white and chrome seagull.

No, he was something sleeker and more graceful than a seagull. More like a crane.

“Hey,” McCree called out to him, “Genji! Plannin' on buildin' a nest up there?”

He was prepared for Genji to ignore him, or to make a dark response, but instead the man laughed. A light peel of happiness, as wholesome as a child's, accompanied with the slight tinny hum of his machinery. In all of their years working together and living together, McCree had never heard him laugh before. Not even so much as a single chuckle. There had been times where he and Reyes had been weeping with laughter, tears rolling down their faces, and Genji had watched them with nothing but contempt or irritation reflecting from his eyes.

In that moment, touched by this new Genji, McCree spoke four words that would cause ripples of further change in their lives: “I'll go with you.”

Genji cocked his head, not understanding.

Feeling awkward that he had to explain himself, McCree cleared his throat and pulled the cigar from his lips. “I know Winston said we can't go out on the mission to get your brother officially. But we'll just go in casual-like. As tourists, yeah? Whatya say?” He needed this. He needed his first work back with Overwatch to be with Genji, because Genji was a part of his bizarre Blackwatch family, and despite how everything turned out, McCree could not deny that his memories of Blackwatch sometimes felt like the only good memories he had.

Genji jumped down, landing catlike at McCree's side. He lifted the faceplate of his helmet. McCree found himself shaken by the warmth in Genji's eyes. The man had truly been reborn, and it took McCree's breath away. Maybe this Genji would not have fit in with Blackwatch. Maybe this Genji would not, could not satiate the nostalgia gnawing at his sanity. Maybe offering his companionship had been a mistake.

“Thank you, Jesse,” he said. McCree was so shocked by what happened next that he nearly dropped the cigar from his slack mouth: _Genji embraced him_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

McCree's first impression was that Narita seemed like any other airport in the world. Everyone was busy, seemed faintly miserable – the only difference was the language on all the signs and advertisements, although McCree was comforted by a fair amount of English sprinkled around. He could mostly have gotten around on his own. In fact, he did not even need Genji's assistance getting through customs; the staff spoke enough English to do their jobs and were so polite that they probably would not have accused him of having a fake passport even if they recognized it as such.

More than in any other country McCree had been to, though, McCree felt like a foreigner. Taller and broader than pretty much everyone around him, and the only Caucasian in sight, McCree stuck out like a sore thumb. Even having a Japanese traveling companion did not help; Genji seemed lost in thought beside him. He wondered if Genji's robotic limbs made him feel equally out of place, even among his own people. Street clothes covered most of his synthetic body, and even though he kept his helmet up, the lower half of his face was hidden behind a surgical mask. Despite all of what he wore, bits of metal poked out everywhere, and there was no way to hide it all. Was that why Genji had not spoken since disembarking the airplane? McCree wished there was anything he could say to lighten the mood, but all he could manage was a lame, “I hate long flights. Feel like shit.”

Genji's eyes crinkled in a way that McCree understood to mean he was smiling. They had just spent fourteen hours on a plane together, during which time Genji had spoken more to him than he had in all their years of working together combined, but McCree still couldn't get used to seeing the man smile. “You should have slept on the plane. I did warn you.”

At baggage claim, McCree was surprised to find the airport staff was pulling suitcases off the carousels and organizing them by color. He thanked the slim, bowing lady in uniform standing beside the luggage before realizing he was in another country, and it was time to stop automatically speaking to everyone in English. He asked Genji for a few useful phrases. As they made their way through the airport, Genji would very slowly say a word or phrase and have McCree repeat it until it sounded close enough. It was surprising to McCree when they took an escalator down one level and were suddenly standing on a dimly lit train platform. He was still trying to learn how to say  _excuse me_ in Japanese.

“You do not need to enunciate your 'r' so much when speaking Japanese,” Genji teased him as they filed in to the back of the line of people waiting for the next train, “And you are drawing out the syllables too long!”

“ _Sumimasen,”_ McCree apologized, running a hand through his shaggy hair and grinning.

“There is no need to apologize,” Genji said, shaking his head. McCree could practically see the smile on his face, despite the absence of a visible mouth, “We learn through our mistakes. Your effort honors me.”

They fell into a comfortable silence. Genji watched the digital boards displaying the train times, while McCree stared down into the black tunnel. Being alone with Genji made McCree miss things that he knew he could never have again.

_Get me a souvenir, kid,_ he heard Reyes say in his head.

_The Japanese are a very respectful people,_ imaginary Moira chided him, _do_ try _not to make a fool of yourself._

There train's arrival was preceded by an announcement, first in Japanese, and then – to McCree's surprise – in English, interrupting his musings with the voices in his head. The crowd moved towards the train doors like sheep herded by some invisible collie. Everyone politely waited for the passengers to disembark, and then, one by one, filed into the cars. He was impressed by the fact that no one was pushing forward or slipping in out of turn. McCree was relieved that he and Genji were able to take a pair of seats just before the car filled up. He moved to prop his feet up on his suitcase, but he noticed that everyone else seemed to fold in on themselves, taking up as little space as possible. He sighed and pulled his luggage in between his knees, wondering if others around him saw his size as an inconvenience.

“We will get off at Shinjuku Station,” Genji told him in a whisper. He was the only person on the train talking, another source of shock for McCree. In America, he had been on public transportation with people who shouted into their phones, fought among each other, or passed out drunk across an entire row of seats. Here, people seemed as still and solemn as churchgoers. A television screen above each door played advertisements featuring pretty women or brightly colored cartoon characters. Occasionally, it switched to maps of the train line, or made an announcement about upcoming stations. Aside from the TVs, the train moved in silence.

Most of the travelers leaned against the windows or let their heads droop against their chest or shoulders and began to doze off. When, moments later, McCree turned to comment on this, he nearly laughed out loud: Genji, too, had closed his eyes.

_Whelp,_ he thought, turning his eyes out the window, _so much for tryin' t'bond._

At first, they sped past tiny towns clustered around single-platform train stations. Rice fields and impressive bamboo forests stretched between the mountains in all directions. The scenery was quaint but pretty in the darkness. While he had never been to Japan before, McCree had been all over the world with Overwatch; he appreciated the beauty, but constantly being deployed to one country or another had jaded him.

But then – Tokyo.

Nothing had prepared him for how sprawling the city was. The train flew at dizzying speed, but the city never seemed to come to an end. Skyscrapers spread out as far as his eyes could see. Everything was lit up with neon colors that bled together, giving the impression of being inside an arcade game. In an absence of space for new construction, stores and restaurants had been stacked on top of each other, higher and higher. Each square foot of the city seemed more tightly packed and chaotic than any other place McCree had ever seen. The stations they passed through became busier. People of all kinds got on an off the train – men in business suits who clung to briefcases, kids in school uniforms who played games on their phones, women wearing fashionable outfits and platform pumps carrying shopping bags, teenagers with increasingly wild hair colors and styles. For the first time in his life, McCree was struck by exoticism. He felt as though he had stepped out of his home universe and into a parallel urban fantasy word.

Beside him, Genji had woken up and his eyes were smiling at McCree's open shock. “Welcome to Tokyo,” he said, gesturing out the window, “It is the largest city in the world.”

They got off at a station that seemed to rival the size of the airport that had just left, but seemed twice as busy. Genji led the way down corridors packed with people. McCree was having a sensory overload. Every restaurant they walked by smelled mouthwatering, the shops they passed played Japanese pop music that battled to be the loudest and most enticing. His head whipped around from side to side, trying to take in all of the sights before they were absorbed into the crowd. And they had not even exited the train station yet.

Out on the streets, his amazement only continued. It was a jungle of lights and concrete. He saw things that simply would not exist in other cities, for practical and cultural reasons. A life-sized Godzilla peered around at them from the top of a tall building. Another, many floors high, had a massive cartoon penguin climbing up its face. On a street corner, men dressed in American rockabilly style, with pompadours taller than McCree had ever seen in real life, were dancing in front of a radio they had set up on the sidewalk. He found himself wishing that he could read the countless signs surrounding them, just so he could have some explanation for the fantastic sights. Even familiar things, like international fast food chains, were not enough to ground McCree and make him feel like he was on the same planet. While it may have been the same pizza place he ordered from, here the delivery guy was a sleek Omnic on a scooter, his body painted with advertisements like tattoos. And, yeah, McCree ate at that burger place all the time back home, but suddenly it was three stories tall and advertising cherry blossom flavored fries. 

“I was torn between what station we should stay at,” Genji said, “Shinjuku, where we are, is the busiest. My brother and I spent a lot of time here doing business for my father. Back then, though, Ikebukuro was a favorite station of mine. However, I was on the wrong path in life. I doubted that you would appreciate staying in the red light district as much as I once did.”

McCree could only gawk at Genji. The red light district? Really? He supposed there was so much that he did not know about his old friend's youth. “Wait...” he said, feeling stupid, “I thought we were in Tokyo?”

“Yes. Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Hanamura. They are all Tokyo. Many parts of one whole.”

Despite his jet-lag, despite their reason for being here, McCree felt awake and excited. He wanted to get lost down the brightly lit, narrow alleys. Genji was a cruel tour guide, though. He insisted they get to sleep early to fight their exhaustion, so that they would be ready to go to Hanamura in the morning. “We can stay out tomorrow night,” Genji told him, “With Hanzo.”


	2. Gravitation

After a handful of hours restlessly tossing and turning, McCree gave up on sleeping and decided to shower and dress. He attempted to make coffee with the kettle in his room, but he couldn't figure out how to work the machine, and he was pretty sure the picture on the packet was of an ear of corn, so he was skeptical that it was even coffee to begin with. As soon as the clock read a reasonable time, he decided to call Genji. They had rented cellphones to use while on the trip, and the thing in his hand felt like it was a hundred years old. After a single ring, there came a string of muffled Japanese words, and McCree feared he had called the wrong number.

“Uh... Genji?”

“Oh! Good morning, Jesse. Did you sleep well?”

No. The bed was rock-hard. He had not been able to turn on the complicated air conditioning. He could not understand why the shower head was attached to the sink, outside of the tub. The toilet had buttons on it that he was afraid of touching. Despite all the culture shock, McCree refused to admit he was struggling. He already felt too alien in this country. Maybe if he lied about it, he could try and convince himself that he was fitting in.

“O'course! Slept like a baby. So, what's the plan for today?”

“Meet me in the hotel lobby at ten o'clock,” Genji told him, “We will take the train to Hanamura.”

McCree looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was a little after eight, and he was starving. He didn't think that he could wait another two hours to eat. So he left the hotel, determined to get some breakfast. Outside, the city had done a transformation. It seemed as though Tokyo had stepped into business casual attire. In the sunlight, without their signs lit up, the buildings looked stark and clean. Men and women dressed in suits headed in the direction of the station, undoubtedly to work, but there were far fewer people out on the streets than there had been the night before. It was so quiet now that he could hear the chimes from the crosswalks and the rumble of trains from the nearby tracks.

McCree walked up and down the blocks with his hands in his pockets, but every storefront he passed was still closed. He had seen at least a dozen vending machines, though, and he was contemplating buying a drink from one of them when he noticed a woman exiting a convenience store across the street from his hotel. The place must be opened. He jogged over, figuring he could at least buy a snack. Inside, though, he was surprised by the country again. Visibly, it resembled any convenience store attached to a gas station in America, but it was stocked with goods that reminded him of how far he was from home. There was an entire aisle of freshly baked pastries and breads. In the refrigerated section were packages of sushi, rice balls, and plastic-wrapped bento lunches. By the register, surrounded by sealed magazines that looked like they contained pornographic cartoons, was a glass display case filled with steamed buns and various fried foods. No matter where McCree looked, there didn't seem to be anything he could easily identify. Even the bags of chips and snacks seemed to be questionable, exotic flavors. Was that one shrimp flavored? Did that box of crackers say seaweed? Back at home, McCree would have assumed the flowers decorating a package of cookies was purely decoration, but here – who knew?

He stood in front of the cash register. The employee, a young man with bleached hair, smiled at him patiently. McCree considered just buying an ice cream from the freezer purely to avoid this embarrassment.

“Uh.” He tapped the glass, pointing at one of the buns it contained, and tried to draw from the very limited vocabulary that Genji had managed to teach him last night, “ _Kore_ _wa_... _doko_... _desu ka_?”

The employee made a face that seemed genuinely apologetic. He could not understand.

“Shit. Uh. _Kore_...”

“Do you have any idea what you're saying?”

At first McCree thought the cashier had spoken up in perfect, rude English, but the blonde boy was staring at someone over McCree's shoulder. McCree turned. It was a Japanese man completely unlike any other Japanese man that McCree had seen so far. First, McCree noticed that his angular face bore a tapered goatee, which struck McCree as unusual because he had seen exactly zero Japanese men with facial hair. Another unusual feature was that the bridge of his nose was pierced, two small silver studs visible just beneath the corners of his eyes. And most notably, the people McCree had met up to now had been kind, polite, smiling, and helpful. This man was serious, decidedly unfriendly, and wore a scowl set into his face as though he had been carved from stone. Despite all of this, the man was handsome enough that it was intimidating. He looked like he could have just stepped from one of the advertisements for cologne or men's underwear that McCree had spotted in the train station.

“You think I'd stand here makin' an idiot of myself if I could do any better?” McCree grumbled, trying to collect himself, “I just wana know what's in that bun right there.”

“You're asking _where_ not _what_. _Doko_ is _where_ ,” the man sighed.

McCree cursed as the man shoved past him and began to speak to the cashier in curt Japanese. The boy nodded and went to pick two buns from the display, wrapping them in paper and putting them in a plastic bag. The stranger counted change out and left it on a tray beside the register. The whole transaction took maybe ten seconds. He turned back to McCree, taking one of the buns out of the bag and thrusting it at him. “They are pork buns,” he said.

“Oh.” McCree took it from the man's hands. The bun was still warm. He had been about ready to punch this guy in the throat, so the generosity left him embarrassed and awkward. “Th-thanks, amigo. How much do I owe you?” The man grunted in response and left the store. Flustered, McCree decided just to head back to the hotel and wait for Genji before having any more solo adventures. Somehow, when he bit into the soft bun and the sweet pork filling met his tongue, the fact that it was so delicious just made him feel doubly ashamed.

 

* * *

 

 

Hanamura was packed with tourists. How could it be anyone's home? Along the vast front doors, vendors had set up little stands and were selling chilled cucumbers or shaved ice. People were crowded on the walkways, taking photographs of the architecture, the rock garden, and the huge bronze bell housed in the large shrine building. It was not a space built for so many visitors, and McCree felt claustrophobic. The feeling of being a fish out of water was even stronger than it had been at the airport yesterday.

Several small voices began to shout: “Hello!”

He turned and found an entire class of students on a field trip, all of them dressed in their uniforms and holding up their phones to take pictures. McCree realized that _he_ was the subject of those photographs, not the shrine itself.

“They want to practice their English,” Genji told him.

“Howdy,” McCree responded, and he gave the kids an awkward wave.

The students gave shrill cries of excitement and began to giggle. “Cowboy!” a boy said, and they each began to call out to him - “Cowboy! Cowboy!”

He found himself suddenly the center of attention, like a celebrity walking into a group of paparazzi. He posed for pictures with a few of the students, who took selfies with him on their phones, holding their index and middle fingers up in a peace sign. McCree copied them, using his robotic arm, and the whole class began to coo with awe over his limb. They touched and poked at it, constantly laughing.

But then a severe looking man with a swollen mole on his cheek swept in. He thanked McCree, even bowed to him, and then ushered the children forward, shouting harsh words in Japanese.

Chuckling to himself, McCree turned back to Genji, but Genji had wandered off. He scanned the crowd, wishing Genji hadn't come out wearing clothes, because now he blended in too well with the crowds, no glint of metal to make him stand out. But then he spotted the back of Genji's sweatshirt and hurried to catch up to him. He was staring up at the gate that separated the shrine from the castle, running his cyborg fingertips over the grains in the wood. Standing at Genji's side, an uncomfortable silence settled.

With Overwatch, McCree had seen so much of the world, but Hanamura felt different. It felt _wrong_. He knew it was because the centuries old shrine and adjoining castle were Genji's former home. No one should grow up in a tourist trap. There was no way to raise normal children in a place like this. Had it always been open to the public? Or was Genji as startled by the chaos here as McCree was? Did the photographers, the cucumber vendors, and the field trips make him regret his decision to return? He didn't feel comfortable asking Genji any of this, but the solemn look in his eyes was answer enough.

“It is best if I speak to my brother alone,” Genji said.

“Fine. But if I don't hear from you in an hour, then I'm coming in.”

“No,” Genji said, “that will not be necessary. Hanzo is not a threat to me.”

“Tch. How's that? He only chopped you to pieces.”

Genji averted his eyes. There was no anger in what remained of his face, only sadness. “That was the past. A different Hanzo and a different Genji. I will not need your help here. This is _not_ a mission. Blackwatch no longer exists.” McCree was not prepared for how badly those words stung. He had to look away from Genji, his mood suddenly ruined. Genji seemed to understand the weight of what he had said, so before McCree could respond, he added, “I know that you only came with me because of our shared past. I appreciate it, Jesse. I do not think I would have enjoyed making this trip alone. Let me ask you a question. If Reyes were suddenly alive today, and he wished to repent for the crimes of his past, would you forgive him?”

“If he was genuinely sorry?” McCree said, not even having to give the issue a moment's thought, “Course I would.”

“Would it matter to you if the others did not forgive him?”

McCree ran fingers through his hair and shook his head.

“I feel the same way about my brother. Hanzo is not a kind man, but he has spent years living in regret. No one in Overwatch believes that he can be reformed. All they see are my wounds. But I forgive him. I hope that you can as well.”

McCree stared back at Genji for a silent moment, chewing his bottom lip and digesting those words. He lacked the eloquence to articulate his feelings.

Genji, seeing the conflicting emotions dimming McCree's expression, relented: “I will be back here in an hour. And if I am not, then you can come in to find me. Okay?”

Some of the darkness lifted from McCree's face, and he nodded. Genji put his hands on the gate, preparing to scale its face. Before he could hoist himself up to the first potential grip, McCree cleared his throat. “I can forgive him, too. Hanzo, I mean.”

Genji looked back at McCree over his shoulder. His eyes were soft, thankful. “I know you can, Jesse.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

McCree wasted time by heading to the ramen shop across the street from the shrine. The place was called Rikimaru - it was in English, so he could read - and in true Japanese quirkiness, featured a huge three-dimensional UFO flying out of the building, with a green lizardlike alien eating ramen in the pilot's seat. There was a long line stretched along the block to get a seat inside, but it wasn't like he had anything better to do, so he smoked and waited, watching the lines of school children enter and leave the shrine. It was the middle of the day now, and hot enough that his collar was damp with sweat, so the idea of eating _soup_ wasn't enticing, but he didn't feel like wandering too far from the shrine. Besides, this line probably meant the place was _good._  Most of his hour had gone by when he finally got a chair at the bar.

The menu had pictures, but he couldn't tell what the differences were – they all just looked like bowls of soup – and he couldn't read the listed ingredients. So with a shrug, he just pointed at the first thing on the menu. The man at the counter was elderly, wearing an apron and a cloth tied around his grey hair. Despite his age, he kept up with the lunch crowd easily, and was quick to serve him a massive bowl, nearly overflowing with a thick dark broth and slices of pork. McCree's first sip made him moan; it was meaty, packed with flavor, and easily the best noodle dish he had ever tasted in his life. The shit called ramen that he had eaten in America didn't even deserve to share a name with this stuff. He scarfed it down, finding even with his appetite that the tremendous bowl was more than he could tackle. There were still noodles and broth in the bowl, as well as the discolored egg that he had been reluctant to touch, when he finally determined he could eat no more.

He checked the time. It had been over an hour since he had promised to meet Genji back at the gate. If Genji still wasn't back, did he really have the skills to scale that wall? He sort of doubted it. Maybe Genji had made that promise knowing McCree could never actually come after him. He meticulously counted out the coins for his meal – thankful that numbers were universal - and left in a hurry, weaving through the crowds of tourists still packing into the shrine. Luckily, McCree didn't have to plan out a daring rescue. Genji was standing in the exact spot McCree had left him.

“You.”

McCree turned. Standing in the shadows a few feet away was a very sour-looking individual, who wore a bow and quiver full of arrows on his back. McCree would have recognized him anywhere. “You?” he parroted, “What're you doin' here?”

“You two have met before?” Genji asked, astonished.

Before McCree could respond with something foolish, the other man spoke, “I noticed a foreigner making a fool of himself in public. I simply stepped in and offered some assistance.”

“I saw him in the convenient store this morning,” McCree explained, “Were you followin' me?”

“No. I was following my brother.”

“Brother?” McCree asked. But then it all made sense. His mouth fell open, his gaze roaming up and down the man before him to take in every last detail of his appearance. He had never seen Genji's face, so it was impossible to recognize any shared features. Had Genji also had such an aquiline nose? The same sharp jaw and cheekbones? Genji's shoulders and chest were not so broad, but were those illusions created by the cyborg parts under his clothes? He could see nothing the two men shared physically in common, but McCree wondered... maybe the eyes? They were almost certainly the same dark, perfectly almond shaped eyes. While Genji's now always seemed somewhat playful, McCree tried to recall years ago, when self-loathing and anger had filled his expression. Hanzo bore that as well, but framed in frown lines that seemed permanent. McCree wondered if he were to smile, would those eyes finally resemble Genji's?

“You were following us?” Genji asked, “How did you even know that I was in the country?”

Hanzo crossed his arms over his chest. Despite the several inches McCree had on him, the way Hanzo carried himself seemed imposing. Somehow, McCree felt that he was looking _up_ at Hanzo. “I have not severed ties with all of my past connections. Use false identities all that you want, _brother_ , but there is only one cyborg with reason to be running around Tokyo.”

Even though Hanzo was about as friendly as a rattlesnake, after their previous conversation, McCree was determined to show Genji that he was willing to forgive Hanzo. He wanted Genji to feel he had made the right decision in bringing him along. So he extended his hand. “Name's McCree.”

Hanzo stared at his hand with disinterest. He did not uncross his arms to shake, did not even offer his own introduction. “Yes. Jesse McCree. My brother has already told me about you.”

A silence settled between the three of them that was far from comfortable. In the distance, the chatter of tourists could be heard over the sound of the wind blowing the last of the cherry flowers from their trees. McCree kept glancing from Genji to Hanzo and back again, waiting for one of them to speak up. Genji stared up at his brother, and McCree was unable to read his expression. Hanzo, on the other hand, made an obvious effort not to look at either of them. In fact, he seemed to be staring off at all the strangers moving throughout his family's shrine. As before, when he studied Genji, McCree found himself wondering if Hanzo hated seeing this place like this. But McCree got the distinct feeling that Hanzo hated everything.

“So,” he finally muttered, slipping his thumbs into his belt loops and rocking back onto his heels, “You're joinin' Overwatch?”

“No,” Hanzo replied.

“Oh.”

Genji tensed, and McCree swore he could hear the buzzing of his machinery speed up. “Brother. You promised that you would consider it.”

Hanzo rolled his eyes. “Very well. My decision has not yet been made,” he corrected himself, “However, I - ”

Hanzo quickly snapped his mouth shut. A group of tourists had ventured within earshot – two men and four women. One of the woman had her phone on a long selfie stick. They gathered together to take a photograph with the shrine in the background, but it was hard to squeeze all six of them in the frame. So they tried and tried and tried, laughing together, wholly unaware of what they were interrupting. McCree, Genji, and Hanzo all stood stifly, aware that they could not continue this conversation in a place so public.

“Brother, we will leave you for now, to consider my offer,” Genji said, “But can we meet up tomorrow for lunch? We can go to our old favorite tendon place. Remember?”

McCree could plainly see that Genji's eyes were full of desperation and, more shockingly, love. Hanzo seemed to fail to notice, though. Either that, or he did notice and was unmoved. “Perhaps,” he said, and he turned away to slip between a shadowy path between buildings.

“Nice t' meetcha,” McCree called out after him, but Hanzo did not even glance back, did not even pause. He let himself be consumed by the shadows, leaving Genji and McCree standing awkwardly by the tourists, who still had not managed to capture a good shot.

A look of defeat settled upon Genji's features, but he took several deep breaths and was able to wipe the emotion from what was visible of his face. Without another word, he headed for the exit, with McCree half-jogging to keep up with him through the crowds. The two men did not speak a word as they walked back to Hanamura Station and boarded the first train back to Shinjuku. McCree fidgeted with his belt buckle to avoid a conversation. He knew that Genji was embarrassed, but Hanzo hadn't tried to kill him, so surely that was something...

It was still early afternoon when they found themselves disembarking. “I am sorry, Jesse,” Genji said when they stood outside of the station, looking up at the tall buildings of the Shinjuku ward, “I need some time alone.”

McCree nodded. “ _No problemo._ You got it.”

What would he do with the rest of his day? He certainly couldn't navigate the trains by himself. And while he was still jetlagged and would not have said no to a nap, he did not want to return to the hotel room, not while it was probably close to 90 degrees outside and he couldn't figure out the AC. Trying to decide on his plans, McCree found a smoking area behind the station. It was like a big glass box - one could still people watch, but the smoke stayed contained. Slipping among the business men and their cigarette fumes, he lit up a cigar. The men were muttering together in low tones. McCree, incapable of joining the conversation, faced the exit and studied the foot traffic streaming out of the station. It amazed him how the flow of people was never-ending.

Years ago, he would have had a whole list of people in Overwatch to buy souvenirs for. On missions in the past, he had spent most of his downtime hunting around marketplaces and tourist traps for gifts. He supposed that some of those people were back in his life now, but time had made them feel like strangers again. Even if he were to spend the afternoon shopping, he wouldn't know their tastes anymore. Moira was always easy to shop for, he remembered. She loved anything with dogs on it. He laughed to himself, imagining what would happen if he had mailed a Japanese souvenir to Talon HQ addressed to Moira O'Deorain.

As he was putting out his cigar and considering lighting up a second one, he saw a familiar figure leaving the station among the crowd. He flicked his cigar into the ashtray and jogged to meet up with the other man. “Hey!” he shouted. The whole crowd of people turned to face him, surprised by his volume, and his target glowered in response.

“Must you make a fool of yourself wherever you go?” Hanzo hissed.

“Why're y'still followin' us?” McCree asked, ignoring the insult.

“This is none of your business,” Hanzo said. 

“Genji is one of my best damn friends, so you bet your britches it's my business,” McCree said, “He loves you. He wants you to forgive yourself. I think the fact that he forgave you is pretty dang impressive. You owe it to him to at least try to make things better.”

“Stop talking to me as though you understand anything. You do not.”

They were making quite a scene, two adult men snarling at each other in front of the train station, breaking up the flow of passersby around them. Hanzo had enough. He turned and left.

“Wait up,” McCree said, right on his heels, “Let me pay you back for this mornin' at least. How much was it?”

“You can pay me back by leaving me alone,” Hanzo growled, only speeding his step up.

“Hold your horses, Hanzo,” McCree said, “Let me at least buy you a drink. We won't talk about Overwatch. I just wana be square with you, that's all.”

Hanzo stopped and turned to McCree, his nostrils flared. He gave a single loud breath. Was it a sigh of resignation, or a huff of fury? McCree stared at him, feeling like he was cowering before a fire-breathing dragon. “Very well,” Hanzo said suddenly, “Follow me.”

Relief washed over McCree, and he fell into pace behind the other man, trying to keep up with his quick steps. He was led away from the station, taking many turns down streets that became quieter and also physically smaller - eventually they were walking down streets too narrow for vehicles, aside from the occasional person on a bicycle. The city amazed McCree, even now. Shinjuku by day was a sea of new, pristine skycrapers. Modern architecture swallowed McCree up. But suddenly, they were somewhere new. A maze of tiny alleys made of old buildings packed together so tightly that he could barely even make out where one ended and the next began. Up and down these streets, there must have been hundreds of storefronts. As McCree gawked, he noticed most of the doors were still closed, their interiors hidden behind metal or wooden grates. None of them looked wider than a one car garage, and some had others stacked on top of them, or even underneath, tucked downstairs below street level. And once the winding backstreets of shabby-looking buildings ended, it was back to Skyscrapers again. Somehow, this patch of old Tokyo had escaped modernization.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“You offered to buy me a drink, yes?” Hanzo said, and he gestured with his hand down the expanse, “Take your pick. They are all top quality.”

All? McCree finally understood. The hundreds of buildings packed into these alleys were all tiny bars, most of them probably unable to cater to more than 6 patrons. He'd been to hole-in-the-wall bars back home, but none that looked so literally like holes in the wall that someone had thrown a couple of chairs into.

“ _Damn_ ,” McCree swore, impressed, brushing his hair back from his sweating brow.

Walking side-by-side, the two men together were as wide as the alley. The few bars that were already opened this early in the day were already at capacity, so McCree had to work to find one with two free seats beside each other. They stepped inside the first one with room for them, and the bartender and two other patrons looked up and stared openly. McCree decided if they were going to be so rude, he wasn't going to hide his gawking either; he looked around and studied everything. The bar and stools filled the place, which seemed more like a closet than a building. There was no room for walking, clearly no restroom or even a kitchen. Just a man behind an ugly, chipped faux marble counter surrounded by dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds, of bottles of booze. The walls and even ceiling were covered in signs, banners, autographed photos of celebrities, fliers for concerts, flags of sports teams, peeled off labels from bottles of liquor, and even old records. There was hardly an inch of spare wall visible. There was a tacky crystal chandelier hanging low overhead, although since it was still daytime, it was not turned on.

Hanzo took a stool and McCree sat beside him. He was surprised that they had not been greeted, weren't being acknowledged at all. He felt like they had walked in to someone's living room without invitation; they might as well have been robbers or something.

But then McCree realized... it wasn't him that they were staring at. It was Hanzo. Something about Hanzo made them uneasy. Perhaps it was his piercings? Or maybe it was the tattoo that they got a flash of when Hanzo pulled out his stool? Did they know or recognize him somehow?

“Well,” McCree said, trying to ignore the awkward staring, “You know how great I am with Japanese. Maybe you should take care of the orderin', and I'll just take care of the buyin'?”

Hanzo spoke something to the bartender. As the man began to work, the other patrons went back to their drinks. This place was so small that McCree was practically shoulder-to-shoulder with Hanzo and the stranger on his right. There was no way to have a private conversation. Even if he hadn't promised not to bring up Genji or Overwatch, any hope of discussing it in here would have been lost.

The bartender handed them each a beer. McCree held his out to Hanzo with a grin. “Cheers?” he said tentatively, unsure if Hanzo would even react.

“Here we say _kanpai,_ ” Hanzo said.

“ _Kanpai!”_ McCree repeated, and to his surprise, Hanzo and the other patrons all raised their glasses with him: “ _Kanpai_!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Time began to move at a strange pace. McCree finished his beer and made a comment about wanting to try some more exotic Japanese drinks. Hanzo ordered one thing after another – sochu (which McCree found smooth and pleasant,) yuzushu (a sweet cocktail,) umeshu (tart enough that his lips puckered), there was a shockingly bitter combination of tea and liquor, and the most unusual drink he tried was a mixed drink using something that Hanzo called Calpis; it looked exactly like milk, but was sugary and citrus-y. As they drank, they talked, although McCree had to skirt several subjects. He couldn't talk about Overwatch at all, which made up the majority of McCree's knowledge and life experience. He also couldn't ask anything about Genji, or Hanzo, redfaced and slurring now, would fall quiet and stare down into his glass. Hanzo similarly shut down whenever McCree asked anything about his past. But they talked about Japan at length. About the late-blooming cherry blossoms, about the bustling and colorful nightlife, about other Japanese cities that Hanzo had been to and McCree could only imagine, and then about the cities around the world where both men had been, because Hanzo was nearly as well-traveled as McCree himself. McCree did his impression of an Italian accent, and the whole bar howled with laughter.

Hanzo's laughter was the best sound that McCree had ever heard. There were two kinds. The first was a contemptuous bark, when Hanzo found something McCree said to be particularly stupid, a loud and baritone eruption. The second type only occurred after they had already downed many drinks: a deep rumble of laughter, rich and dark. It reminded McCree of hoof-beats of a herd of mustang, of the roll of summer thunder, of the waves and wind crashing against Gibraltar on stormy nights. When McCree managed to draw that laughter from Hanzo, his chest swelled with pride. Though his mind at that point was waterlogged and clumsy, the man's laughter was sharp and clear to him.

They kept drinking, and they kept talking. Hanzo described his bow, miming the action of stringing it, of knocking an arrow, of drawing it back. McCree in return told him about Peacekeeper, about his records in the training simulations, about learning to aim from Ana Amari, and then about losing her. This opened a door somewhere inside of him, and the words came sloshing out. He told Hanzo about the ruthless pranks they had played lovingly on Morrison. About the noble warrior Reinhardt, stronger and larger than any man McCree had known, and how he could be found weeping over melodramatic movies in the media room on his nights off. About the Christmas parties they had thrown, where world renowned engineer Torbjorn Lindholm, designer of half the Omnics in production to this day, was forced by his wife to dress up as Santa Claus and distribute gifts at the White Elephant exchange.

“Was totally random, y'know, no one knew who their gift was goin to... n' we're all sittin' there around the tree n' Genji gets this reeeeeeeal long box,” McCree threw his arms out to show the size, nearly hitting the bartender in the face, “He opens the thing – ha! ha! T'this day no idea who the gift was from – n it's a goddamned back massager with a whole bunch o lo-lo-...” McCree couldn't even finish the story. There were tears in his eyes. He swayed on his stool, laughing to himself until he was crying. “A whole bunch of lotion! Can you imagine? Ain't even got a back or skin to put the stuff on! And everyone goes real quiet. You could hear a damn pin drop, swear t'God... Torbjorn was as red as his damn costume. Genji was madder 'n a wet hen! He said somethin', God, can't even remember what. Like 'is this a joke to you people?' And thank fuckin' God for Lena! 's her turn next, to decide if she wants to steal a gift or take a new one from the pile, she hops right up and says she's always wanted a damn back massager and gives him her mug n' cocoa set!”

McCree was slapping his knee, brushing tears from his cheeks, when he noticed that Hanzo had gone quiet beside him. He failed to put the story and Hanzo's reaction together. All he knew was that he wanted to hear Hanzo laugh again. “C'mon,” he said, grabbing Hanzo by the hand as he swung off the stool, “Lessgo.”

“Where?” Hanzo asked.

“Idunno.”

McCree paid with a credit card before even glancing at the bill, and he pulled Hanzo back out into the alley. How long had they been in there? Time was a blur. The sun was low now, the alleys dimmed by long shadows. The bars were all opened now, and it was standing room only outside, customers huddled on the sidewalks with their bottles and shot-glasses, shouting, laughing – all the noise was trapped between the close buildings, so the alley seemed deafening.

“I know where we should go!” Hanzo yelled over the din.

Together they left the thronged cluster of bars. Hanzo led the way back to the station, although McCree had no clue what direction they were moving in himself. He clung to Hanzo's arm, and Hanzo stumbled against him. They passed a street-side stall, where a young Turkish man was selling kebab sandwiches. Hanzo stopped and bought one for each of them. As the man sliced portions from the spinning chunk of meat, he revealed that he spoke more English than he did Japanese, and he asked McCree where he was from. “You remind me of Clint Eastwood!” the man said, and threw an extra couple of slices on their pita out of amusement.

Somehow they stumbled through the station and managed onto a train platform. It was rush-hour now, and when the train arrived, the crowd moved like a school of fish towards the opening doors. They packed into a train car, such a tight squeeze that neither of them could move their arms. McCree had never been so physically close to so many strangers in his entire life. They stood chest-to-chest, Hanzo's back to the train door. McCree held onto his waist for support as the train started moving. This close, McCree picked up a faint scent coming from Hanzo – perhaps his shampoo or soap? It was a crisp, clean, woody scent. Something like camphor or cypress? McCree breathed it in deeply, letting Hanzo fill up his lungs. Forget cigars. He'd breathe this in forever if he could. The train moved and their bodies swayed together. The movement made him dizzy. He closed his eyes and even the darkness seemed to be unsteady. His grip on Hanzo tightened.

“Your arm. It hurts,” Hanzo said.

McCree could feel the breath on his lips, could smell the liquor from his tongue. How could holding Hanzo close like this possibly hurt him? But then he remembered – how the hell had he forgotten? - one of his arms was not flesh and bone. His metal prosthetic was wedged between the door and Hanzo's back, squeezing into his ribs.

“Sorry,” McCree said, quickly loosening his grip, “I don't normally drink so much.” As if that was an explanation.

Hanzo laughed, the sound filling up the remaining space overhead in the train car. All eyes were on them, but neither of them noticed.

“Why'm I drunk righ'now with Genji's brother?” McCree asked aloud, although he thought he was wondering these thoughts privately in his head, “Why'm I even havin' such a good time?”

Hanzo kept laughing, and McCree felt like this must be heaven.

At the next two stops, McCree attempted to get off each time the doors opened, but Hanzo held them in place as new passengers got on board, jostling them closer and closer together. Hanzo's face was nearly brushing against his beard. McCree pushed his face into Hanzo's hair, taking in breaths full of his scent, and he kissed the top of his head. He expected Hanzo to pull away, or to chastise him, but when Hanzo did not, McCree cupped his face in his hands -

The doors opened a third time, and Hanzo slipped away from McCree, off the train before McCree could come any closer to him. McCree was too inebriated to be disappointed. He laughed and chased after Hanzo, thinking of it as a game. He had no idea what station they were at, nor was he sober enough to make sense of the maps of the train lines on the walls, so if he and Hanzo were separated in this crowd, then McCree would never find his hotel on his own. However, on an escalator, Hanzo turned suddenly to face him, throwing both hands over McCree's eyes.

“You must not look! Promise me that you will not look!”

McCree didn't understand Hanzo's demands, but he wasn't about to say no to him. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, and Hanzo gripped him by the wrist, guiding him like a blind man through the crowd. As they walked, the backdrop of city sounds grew louder, and McCree's excitement trumped his uncertainty. He could feel fresh air on his face, hear the rumble of car motors and the rising and falling of countless passing voices. Somewhere, someone was playing live music – a woman, singing to an acoustic guitar. The sounds were all so aloud, so alive.

“Can I open m'eyes?” he mumbled.

“No! You must wait!”

Hanzo put his hand on McCree's back, pushing him forward. McCree tried not to stumble, the ground beneath his feet felt like it was made of jello, but Hanzo was a careful guide.

“Okay,” he finally said, “You may look.”

McCree did.

They were standing in the center of the street, the cars on every side stopped by red lights. In a circle around them, tall buildings lit up with advertisements loomed like the urban mountains. And the people... so many people... moving like the tide. Hundreds of them crossing the street at different angles, utterly oblivious to how breathtaking and wonderful the city was around them. McCree turned in a slow circle, taking in every detail. The most marvelous part of it all, though, was Hanzo standing before him, back-lit by the gigantic digital billboard across the street, _beaming_ from ear to ear. His face was cherry-red, his frown lines gone, the brows no longer furrowed. McCree wanted to kiss him.

But there came a frantic chiming, signaling the end of the time to cross, and Hanzo grabbed his wrist and dragged him across the street. They had to break into a run to beat the traffic. Safely on the sidewalk, the burst of exertion hit McCree like a punch to the gut, and he doubled over, trying not to vomit right in front of everyone. “I... I reckon I need t'sit down,” he muttered.

Hanzo's lips curled into a mischievous smile. “Very well. Come.” He urged McCree forward. McCree would never be able to recall the clumsy walk up the busy streets. That was where his memory of the night got real fuzzy. He did vaguely remember being in an elevator at some point. The next part of the night where he was truly conscious was when Hanzo pushed him down into a pink couch covered in cute throw-pillows. The couch was in front of a window overlooking a small park, although the sun had set entirely and all he could make out was the dark shapes of trees.

“Where're we?” he moaned.

Hanzo only laughed in response.

Whatever. It felt good to be seated, so McCree wasn't going to keep questioning it. He dropped his head back into the pillows and stared up at the starry sky out the window. His stomach was really queasy, so he tried to stay very still and take deep breaths.

A calico cat jumped into his lap.

“Whassat? A cat?” McCree asked.

The cat stared up at him, unblinking, and began to knead its claws into his shirt.

“Who's cat's this?”

A second cat appeared, furry and orange. It shoved its head into McCree's palm, eager for affection. He scratched its neck, not comprehending what was going on.

“Hanzo, these yer cats?”

Suddenly, there were cats everywhere. To his drunk mind, it seemed like hundreds of them, but in reality it was maybe half a dozen. They rubbed against his legs, climbed up onto the back of the couch to nuzzle his shoulders, curled up in his lap – meowing and purring and licking him with their rough stubby tongues. “Hanzo, where're you? They're gonna bite me! They're gonna... they're...” he began to laugh, although it was nervous laughter. Had Hanzo tricked him into sneaking into someone's cat-filled apartment or something?

Hanzo appeared at his side with two glasses of liquid, the condensation dripping down his fingers.

“No, no,” McCree said, “I can't drink anything else.”

“It's water,” Hanzo said, pushing the glass into McCree's hand. Hanzo chugged his down as if he'd been in a desert all afternoon instead of a bar. A grey tabby curled up on his chest, and he leaned in to McCree's shoulder, closing his eyes. McCree tried to sip at his water, knowing he needed to re-hydrate, but it was hard when the cats demanded his touch, and when Hanzo was so near to him. The moment was dreamlike. He had no sense of how long they sat there, surrounded by cats. Hanzo was asleep, his head nuzzled into McCree's beard. McCree pushed his face into Hanzo's hair. He could hear his pulse in his ears and wondered if Hanzo could hear it too. After finishing his water, he began to feel slightly more like himself. He pushed the cats off of him and tried to shake the other man awake.

“C'mon, Hanzo,” he said, “Let's go.”

Hanzo was blacked out and useless. McCree knew there was no way he could find the train station, he didn't even remember the streets they had taken to get here. He dragged Hanzo out of the place filled with cats, and out onto the road, where he was able to hail a taxi. The doors opened automatically for them when the car stopped. The driver was an Omnic dressed in a sharp uniform and white gloves. By some miracle, he spoke fluent English and was knew McCree's hotel based on description alone. McCree shoved Hanzo into the back of the car and crawled in beside him. Hanzo slumped, lifeless, into his lap.

As the taxi wove through the streets, McCree stroked Hanzo's hair and fought back carsickness by staring straight ahead out the windshield. The night was still early, but already the city was in full splendor, all colors and noise and movement. He could never live here – he'd never really get used to this city lifestyle – but it had been a very long time since he had enjoyed himself so much.

Hanzo stirred, sitting up and adjusting his topknot. “Mmm... where's the cats?” he moaned.

There was another jump in McCree's memories of the night. One moment he was in the taxi beside Hanzo, and the next he was back in his hotel room. He stripped down to his underwear and flopped onto the unwelcoming bed. He was sticky with perspiration. Where was Hanzo? Hanzo must have gone home. McCree miserably begged for Hanzo to come back and turn on the air conditioning. Why had he let the man leave without doing that for him at least? He threw his hand out onto the nightstand, fumbling for the light switch.

There came a rumbling from the ceiling, and the room was flooded with cool air.

“ _Ari_... _gato_...” McCree muttered, and he laughed to himself, thinking how _gato_ meant 'cat' in Spanish.

Hanzo spread out on the bed beside him, and McCree nearly jumped out of his skin. Hanzo was still here? The man had taken off his shirt, and finally McCree could see the entirety of the tattoo that he had caught glimpses of all night. His left arm, from shoulder to wrist, was inked with rolling storm clouds and vivid golden lightning. A dragon moved through the storm, its gaping maw angry and dangerous. McCree reached out to touch the dragon's tail, which curved across Hanzo's breast, but the man jerked away. “Do not touch me,” he said.

It made no sense to McCree, considering Hanzo had just been sleeping in his lap in the car. He huffed to himself and flipped off the lights, scooting over to the other edge of the bed. The mattress was so small that even with both of them clinging to a side, there was only maybe half a foot of space between their backs.

 _Guess I just gravitate towards assholes_ , McCree thought to himself, mentally checking down the list – _Reyes, yep. Moira, yep. Genji... well, he used to be, that was for sure._ _I really don't know how to function without someone scowling at me and pointing out how much of a fuck-up I am,_ McCree wanted to say, _Now that Genji's all spiritual, there's an open position._ Instead, all he said was, “G'night.”


	3. Onsen

The phone rang, dragging McCree out of his deep slumber. Immediately – pain. His head weighed a thousand pounds, and when he lifted it off the pillow, all he knew was throbbing agony. The room around him pulsed in his vision, like a camera on autofocus trying to right itself. He moaned and rolled over, and his stomach threatened to empty itself across the sheets. Each ring was daggers in his eardrums. His fingertips fumbled blindly over the floor until they found his pants, and then he dug the phone out of the pocket. The battery was nearly dead, he saw, and Genji had been texting him all of yesterday. 

“Jesse? Were you still asleep?”

McCree grunted. 

“Are you okay? I could not find you last night. I was afraid that you had gotten lost. I felt guilty for leaving you alone at the station.”

“Not lost. I'm here.”

He heard Genji take a deep breath. “Jesse, will you do me a favor?”

 _Fuck._ McCree could have cried. No favors, please. Just sleep. “Uh. Yeah. What is it?”

“I did a lot of thinking last night,” Genji said, “I believe that if anyone can help Hanzo, it would be Zenyatta.”

“Uh. Who?” The name was familiar enough, but no face came to mind. In fact, nothing came to mind. If pressed, he probably wouldn't have even been able to recall his own birthday. 

“My master, Zenyatta. I told you all about him on the plane.”

“Oh. Yeah.” McCree held the phone about six inches away from his ear.

“I must go to Nepal. I will bring my master back with me. My brother will accept the lessons from a stranger more readily than he will accept them from me.”

“Um. What?” Surely McCree had misunderstood him. He flopped over onto his back, glancing over at the form of Hanzo, as if to ask  him - can you believe this guy? Except Hanzo wasn't in bed any longer. What had happened? If it wasn't for the air conditioning on high, blowing hard enough that he had pulled the sheets over him in the night, then he might have thought Hanzo had never been here at all.

“It will not take me long. I can be back in two or three days.”

“Are you pullin' my leg, Genji? You wanna leave me alone in a country I don't know?” He was too hungover to deal with this. He pushed his face into the bed and moaned into the pillows.

“All I am asking is that you meet Hanzo for lunch today. Tell him that I am ill. Keep up with him in my absence. Under no circumstances should you let him know that I have gone to Nepal. If he knows that I am scheming against him, he will not put a moment's thought towards my proposition. When I return, we will convince him to come home with us.”

“You want me to go to lunch with Hanzo?” McCree asked, the only part of what Genji had said that made any sense. It seemed like an absurd request, after the two men had literally slept in the same bed together.

“Yes. I will give you his contact information. Please, Jesse, do not let him know that I am gone.”

“Fine,” McCree mumbled, thumbing the button to end the call and throwing his phone back into the pile of wrinkled denim that was his pants.

“What was that about?”

McCree sat up too quickly, his brain swimming in his skull. Hanzo was still there after all, dressed and seated at the desk across the room, eating a bento deftly with chopsticks. The sight of food made McCree want to run screaming. The disgust must have been obvious on his face, because Hanzo leaned forward and passed him a strange bottle of liquid, its label in Japanese and therefor unreadable.

“A hangover remedy. I made a run to the convenience store while you were snoring.”

Hanzo didn't seem too bad over there, so McCree figured it was worth a shot. He opened it and took a long swig. It tasted like citrus-flavored medicine, with a hint of something spicy and herbal. He felt sure he would throw it up, the flavor alone was enough to make his stomach do flips in his gut. “Genji says he's not feeling good,” McCree said, “Wants me to take you to lunch.”

“That is unnecessary.”

They sat in silence. Hanzo went back to his breakfast. Lunch? McCree had no idea what time it was. He finished his drink as quick as he could, eager to get it over with, praying for it to work but grimacing with every sip. “Okay. Maybe it is unnecessary. But what if I want to?”

“To what? To take me to lunch?”

“Yeah. I don't know Japanese. If I ain't with you, then I'll be up here alone all day if Genji's under the weather. So what if I wana go with you?”

Hanzo paused to consider McCree's words. He pushed his rice around with his chopsticks, trying to make up his mind. McCree watched him, hoping he'd relent. There was nothing McCree wanted more in the world than just to spend one single more day in Hanzo's company.

“Very well. But first, let's take a bath. You smell like old liquor.”

“Huh? You saying you wana bathe _together_?”

Hanzo smirked. “Of course.”

 

* * *

 

McCree hissed as he lowered himself into the bath. “Dang it, Hanzo! Does it have to be so hot?”

Hanzo was submerged up to his shoulders in the scalding water with his eyes closed. He opened one to watch McCree squirm in discomfort, but he did not respond.

McCree continued to mutter and swear under his breath as he tried to sit down. He couldn't see how this was possibly good for his skin. He propped his cybernetic arm up on the lip of the tub. It was meant to be waterproof, but he sort of wondered if boiling water was what the engineers had in mind.

Taking a few deep breaths, he tried to relax, but couldn't. It wasn't every day he found himself as naked as the day he was born taking a bath with Genji's big brother. McCree knew enough about Japanese culture to understand this was no big thing to Hanzo, but that didn't make it less unusual for him. When they got to the bathhouse, they had been assigned lockers. McCree was storing all his stuff, still not totally sure of what was going on or why they were here, and suddenly he looked over and all he could see was Hanzo's obscenely round ass. Was he still in bed asleep back in the hotel? Was this some kind of nightmare? Or another type of dream entirely? Hanzo strolled over to the showers as if it was nothing and began to wash himself. McCree had never showered with anyone before, let alone another man. He had shuffled awkwardly to a free shower head next to the one Hanzo was using, feeling self-conscious about his tan, how hairy he was, and the fact that his body didn't resemble some sculpted Japanese god.

And now, here they were. The tub was a deep, rectangular trench in the floor in a separate room from the showers, surrounded by glass walls through which they could admire the Japanese countryside. There were rice paddies as far as the eye could see – emerald grass building the perimeter around square pools that reflected the cloudy midday sky. In the distance were traditional-style Japanese homes, old and wooden and small. Walking past them to get up to this _onsen_ , Hanzo had pointed out that each of them had rooftiles shaped like ogre heads, which were meant to protect the inhabitants of the houses. Beyond the village stretched a range of low mountains. There was no sign of the city, even though according to the maps of the train lines they were somewhere between Tokyo and the airport. Because of its location, McCree assumed the place would be packed. The baths were shared by all male visitors to the  _onsen,_ but the only other person they had seen here was an old man sweating in front of the tiny, decades-old television screen inside the sauna.

“I'm surprised there ain't more people here,” McCree said, “this place's beautiful.”

“There are better and busier _onsen_ much closer to Tokyo,” Hanzo replied without opening his eyes. He seemed unimpressed by the view, “This one is out in the middle of nowhere.”

McCree shrugged and peeled his eyes away from the postcard perfect scenery to instead stare at the man in his bathwater. Hanzo's hair was down, hanging around his face. It was sleek and shiny, black as ink aside from the greying at his temples, and softened his angular, severe features. McCree was surprised by the effect it had on him. The desire to run his hands through it, to grab fistfuls of it, to pull on it was so strong that his fingers trembled underwater. “Then why'd you take me all the way out here?” he asked, “Instead of one of the better ones?”

Hanzo's eyes both opened, locking with McCree's. He raised his left arm and the dragon emerged from the water, its scales dripping wet. “Most _onsen_ do not allow individuals with tattoos to use their facilities. I had to search online for one that would allow me in.”

McCree moved in closer to Hanzo, holding his tattooed arm reverentially in both hands. He expected Hanzo to pull away or insult him, but the man was still, perhaps the anger in him was soothed by the hot bathwater. He closed his eyes again, leaning back into the water, which McCree took as permission to proceed. His fingertips followed the slick curves of the dragon's serpentine body – from the wrist up his forearm, curling around the elbow, along the underside of his thick bicep, rolling over his shoulder and ending with the tail resting across his breast. McCree pressed in a little deeper there, his fingertips picking up the faintest heartbeats. Hanzo's pulse was calm and steady.

“How d'ya feel?” McCree asked.

“Good,” Hanzo said, not realizing that McCree was referring to his hangover.

McCree ran his palm across the storm. The wispy outline of each cloud was so delicately detailed. Whoever did this tattoo was clearly a master. He caressed the thick bolts of golden lightning with the softest of touches, his fingers just barely grazing the skin. Hanzo's whole body quivered, a hiss of pleasure escaping his clenched teeth. Feeling emboldened by Hanzo's reactions, McCree pulled Hanzo's wrist to his mouth, and he pressed a kiss very gently to the maw of the dragon. He tried to imagine Hanzo's lips against his own – they were pretty, McCree thought, like a woman's. If only Hanzo would stop looking so cross, then maybe McCree would test them out.

“Get off of me before you get us both kicked out,” Hanzo muttered, drawing his wrist away from McCree's kisses.

“Did you bring me here to tease me, Hanzo?” McCree asked, refusing to let go of his arm. He slid in closer, so their sides were touching underwater. The feeling of Hanzo's thigh against his thigh, hip against his hip, made McCree certain he couldn't hold himself back any longer.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Hanzo said, his tone still gruff, even though there were now goosebumps up and down his arm.

“Was the bath all an act just to get me naked?” McCree asked, chuckling under his breath, “Cuz you coulda just asked.”

“Don't embarrass yourself,” Hanzo said, “A hot bath is a common cure for hangovers. I can assure you, I would have much rather found a way to bathe clothed. Or alone.”

McCree laughed. “Sure, whatever ya say.”

“Besides,” Hanzo continued, “In that case, I could argue that getting me drunk last night was all just a ploy to get me in bed with you.”

McCree laughed again, leaning in close this time, his hot breath brushing against Hanzo's cheek. “That's a terrible argument. I didn't even ask you to stay. You just did, whether I wanted ya to or not.”

“You _did_ ask me to stay!” Hanzo protested, his eyes opening wide in surprise, “How have you forgotten? In the taxi you were nearly in tears: _'Han-zoh, if ya don't come ta mah room an turn the ayer conditionin' awn, then I'm just gonna die t'night._ ”

His attempt at McCree's accent had both men howling. McCree laughed until his entire face hurt, until there were tears in his eyes. Beside him, Hanzo's more reserved laughter sent ripples of pleasure through him. “No, I don't remember that at all!” he admitted, “But even if that did happen, I was askin' you to come turn the air on, not to stay the night. And I don't sound anythin' like that!”

“That is exactly what you sound like,” Hanzo retorted. He tried to relax again, but even with his eyes closed, his lips were still pulled back into a smile he could barely contain. His chest was shuddering, still fighting back laughter.

McCree wondered what Genji would think of this – of him and Hanzo in a bath together, naked, laughing. McCree couldn't shake the feeling that somehow he was taming this dragon. Maybe Genji wouldn't need Zenyatta at all. Maybe if he was just left with Hanzo for long enough, he could convince Hanzo to come back with him. It would give him so much pleasure to watch Hanzo give the others back at the Watchpoint his icy introduction, knowing that he alone in the room could make this man smile or had heard this man laugh. The others would whisper about how unfriendly Hanzo was, about his bad attitude and petrifying gaze, and McCree would be the one assuring them that there was another side they had yet to see. Maybe they would never see it. Maybe these peeks at a gentler Hanzo would be all his.

“Hey, Hanzo?”

“Mmm.”

“Why don't they let folks with tattoos in places like this?” he asked, and he lowered his head to plant a trail of kisses across the dragon's coils.

It was the wrong thing to ask. He felt Hanzo tense against his lips. “There is a stereotype in Japan that only criminals get tattoos.”

McCree chuckled. “Well, that was true for you, wasn't it?”

Hanzo jerked his arm away from McCree, his eyes dark and serious. “Is that what Genji told you? Is that what you _believe_?”

“No, no! Now, Hanzo, don't get your britches twisted,” McCree backpedaled, “Genji never told me anythin' like that. Shit, I'm just tryin' to figure you out, Hanzo. I don't got a clean slate myself. I'm the last person to judge you for yours.”

“You do not need to know my past. All that you need to know is that my life is now devoted to repenting for it.”

“That's fair,” McCree said, but Hanzo was already worked up, sitting upright in the water, recoiling from McCree's touch.

“The actions of my predecessors do _not_ reflect my own values,” Hanzo barked, rising from the water, “If I had been allowed to lead the Shimada Clan after my father's death, I would not have made the same choices that others made before me. I am _not_ defined by my ties to the Shimada name. My brother did not understand that either. If only he had been less judgmental of me, then perhaps our lives would flow together on a very different path. And before you say anything, because I know what you must be thinking – Genji was not a helpless child. It was my life or his. The only difference is that the world, including your little organization of _heroes,_ see things only at face value. I would have been left to die where my brother was saved.”

McCree also rose to his feet, because arguing at crotch-level with the man whom he had just been caressing seemed like a terrible fever-dream. “Quit puttin' words in my mouth, Hanzo. I wasn't talkin' about any of that. If Genji forgave you, then I reckon I should too. Look at him. He's happy now. You're mentionin' these _paths_ in life, or whatever? Well everythin' that happened so far, terrible as it was, got Genji on his best path. Now, I know you don't believe it yet, but if you give him a chance, you'll see it in Genji yourself. And all he wants is to help _you_ get on yer best path, too.”

McCree started at that furious face, the thick brows drawn into an angle that turned his handsome eyes into a picture of disdain. “You mean Overwatch,” Hanzo said, “You think that Overwatch is good for me.”

“Hell, it's gotta be an improvement over this, Hanzo. I don't reckon runnin' around all alone thinkin' of nothin' but vengeance is good for you.”

Hanzo stepped out of the bath and stormed towards the locker-room.

“Wait! Wait!” McCree said, charging after him. He grabbed Hanzo by the wrist, pulling him around to face him, “Listen, Hanzo. Genji's like kin to me. And cuz o' that, I care about you, too. It don't make a lick o' difference to me if you come back with us or not. I just want you to move on and be happy. I want you to be happy, y'hear? And what you're doin' right now ain't the answer.”

The two naked men arguing loudly in English had drawn the man out of the sauna, and he was standing in the doorway, openly eavesdropping.

“You are more of a fool than I thought if you think we are similar in any way,” Hanzo said, jerking away from McCree's grip. He opened his locker and snatched his towel from inside, beginning to pat his body dry.

“Would it be so bad to live like this? Rekindlin' your relationship with your brother? Drinkin' with me? You n me, I think we could be a great team on Overwatch missions. You all levelheaded like. You can keep me from bein' impulsive, and I can keep you from bein' a bastard.”

“Silence. I will not join Overwatch. Our goals do not align.”

“Hanzo, even if Overwatch has other goals, Genji will help you. _I'll_ help you. We can achieve your goals together. That's what family is. It ain't about a name or a legacy. It's about love, and where your home is.”

Hanzo snorted and rolled his eyes. He collected his clothes and began dressing without meeting McCree's desperate gaze.

“Hanzo, c'mon. I'll drop the subject,” McCree pleaded with him, “We paid for the day here. You might as well stay and enjoy it. We only just got here!”

“It was 800 yen,” Hanzo said, throwing himself down onto a bench so he could pull on his boots, “I think I will survive.”

Defeated, McCree glanced over at the stranger, as if somehow he could fix things. Instead, the man dodged back into the sauna, pretending he had witnessed nothing. McCree sighed and took a few steps back, relenting. “Fine. But I'm gonna get my money's worth outta this place. I'm on vacation. Go ahead and leave. No skin off my nose.”

He retreated to the bath again, slipping into the water with a splash. When he glanced over his shoulder at the lockers, Hanzo had already disappeared.

“Damn!” he shouted, punching the surface of the bath and splashing himself in the face with scalding water. It only made him angrier, and he attacked the water with an open palm as if it could somehow solve his problems.

In his head, he could hear Reyes laughing. _Nice try, Romeo._

“Shut up!” McCree muttered, sinking lower into the tub, toying with the idea of just drowning himself and calling it a day.

 

* * *

 

McCree lingered at the spa until sunset. He told himself that he did so out of spite, but deep down, he knew that he was hoping Hanzo would come find him there. He stuffed himself full of sushi at the restaurant inside, and then spent the rest of his afternoon alternating between the sauna and the different baths. No matter what he did, he could not relax. Every time someone new came to soak, he looked up hopefully, only to be disappointed.

So now, McCree had at least one more day, but possibly many more, in which he would somehow have to entertain himself. As he sat on the train back to Shinjuku, the prospect seemed daunting. He couldn't really speak a word of Japanese, he didn't know the train system, and now he was in a bad mood. But as he got off at his station, the vibrancy of the city changed his mind. It had been a _very_ long time since he had been somewhere that he wasn't a wanted criminal. Here, he could just enjoy himself without having to keep check over his shoulder. It could be liberating, if only he'd stop thinking about Genji's stubborn, awful brother.

Tomorrow he would wander through the arcades, waste money at the pachinko parlors, and buy himself some souvenirs. There was a restaurant on the corner near his hotel that specialized in sticks of grilled meat, and both nights since he had arrived, the place had been standing room only, with people lining up on the sidewalks outside to eat. Maybe he would join them there and stuff himself til he was sick. Maybe he'd buy tickets to a show somewhere; he had seen advertisements for some kind of sumo tournament. Or hell, maybe he'd buy tickets out of the whole dang city, and spend the night in Kyoto or wherever the train took him. Anything to be away from Hanzo. Anything to be distracted from Hanzo.

Tonight, though, he would sleep. He was still full from his huge sushi dinner, and his limbs still felt heavy from the hangover of this morning. The throb of the city, it's vivacious heartbeat, improved his mood significantly, so by the time he reached his room, he was smiling again. He tried to pry the window open and smoke, but it wouldn't budge, so he flopped down on the bed and chewed on a cigar instead. The taste of tobacco took the remaining edge off his mood. He turned on the television and flipped through the channels lazily, not understanding a single thing happening on the screen.

He must have dozed off. Some time later, a knock on the door brought him to, and he found his chin and beard smeared with drool, his soggy cigar on his chest. Was Genji back already? He rubbed at his face and tossed the cigar onto the nightstand, pulling himself to his feet. It was a slow, reluctant shuffle to the door.

Hanzo. Of fucking _course_ it was. Just when McCree had grown optimistic about his days alone, there he was in the hallway with his stupid bow and arrows like some damn Japanese Robin Hood. He wore his typical serious expression, as imperative as the moment they had first met. McCree wanted to slam the door in his face. Instead, he stumbled backwards, letting Hanzo in. The man refused to meet his eye as he kicked his shoes off and took his spot in the bed from the night before.

McCree sighed and shut the door. He lay down beside Hanzo, carefully maintaining the space between their bodies. Hanzo had his back to him, his face pointed towards the wall. McCree turned the television off, then the lights, and sank back down onto his pillow.

“Would you truly be willing to help me?” Hanzo asked in the darkness.

“I offered, didn't I?” McCree answered, “Ain't gonna offer if I don't mean it.”

Tentatively, he reached up to take the ends of the long yellow ribbon that held up Hanzo's hair. He pulled the ribbon free, watching the black curtains of hair fall around Hanzo's neck and shoulders.

“Just tell me what you need,” he said, sliding in closer to Hanzo, pushing his face into the other man's hair, “Go ahead. I'm all ears.”

“Not now,” Hanzo muttered, his tone miserable. 

That was fine to McCree. Hanzo's hair was like silk against his cheeks, and every breath of his scent soothed him more than the _onsen_ ever had. He had not been that tired before, but now there was nowhere else on this planet that he'd rather be than in this bed in the dark, with this body gradually relaxing against him. They'd probably fight again tomorrow. They'd probably fight again every day until they parted ways. But as long as Hanzo came back to him, he figured he could put up with that forever if he had to. Well, so much for vacationing alone.


	4. Reluctance

The past four days had been mostly sleepless for McCree – first because of his early flight, followed by a time difference that stole yet another night from him, the next was restless due to jetlag, and then finally thanks to his hangover and Genji's phonecall. This morning, he had hoped to doze until 9 o'clock or later, especially with Hanzo against him, warm and comforting. However, life had other plans in store for him. Or, rather, Hanzo did.

“Jesse.”

He opened his eyes, immediately in a foul mood about being woken early again. Even the sight above him wasn't enough to cheer him. Hanzo was sitting up in the small bed, leaning over McCree, his typically severe expression replaced by a mischievous one. It was dark in the room, and not just because the lights were off; outside, it was still twilight. The windows let in milky moonlight and the weak, distant glow of street lamps. The sun wasn't the only thing missing. For the first time since arriving here, McCree noticed the lack of noise. No hum of passing cars, no voices of the foot traffic, no chirps of the crosswalks. It was eerie.

“Somethin' wrong?” McCree asked. He pulled his gaze away from Hanzo and towards the bedside table, at the digital alarm clock and its numbers that seeped their red light into the room.

“Nothing,” Hanzo said, “Would you like to do something interesting?”

“Hanzo. It's four in the mornin'.”

Hanzo did not seem to find this an issue. “Do you want to or not?” he asked.

“If I say no,” McCree said, sliding his arms up around Hanzo's sturdy shoulders, “do we get to lay around n cuddle?”

“No.”

McCree groaned.

 

* * *

 

By the time they had both gotten ready and left the hotel, the sun was just beginning to rise, golden and russet hues bleeding out of the horizon and cutting through the darkness. It was still far too early, in McCree's opinion. In everyone else's too, it seemed, because the station was nearly empty and gave off the impression of a bar after closing time. Custodians were cleaning everything – dragging squeegees up and down the sides of escalators, sweeping staircases, sanitizing handrails, emptying recycling bins. They waited for a train on a deserted platform. Hanzo watched the clock while McCree dropped down onto a bench and shut his eyes.

“You gonna tell me where we're goin'?” he asked when they settled down in seats on the empty train.

“As you said yesterday, you're on vacation,” Hanzo responded, “So we are doing tourist things.”

“At five A.M.?”

Hanzo rolled his eyes and refused to discuss their destination further. Moments later, McCree dozed off, his head rolling onto Hanzo's shoulder. Hanzo listened to his languid breathing with an affectionate smile, stroking his hair like a beloved pet dog. He let McCree sleep for the duration of their nearly half-hour ride, only nudging him awake when they had reached their stop. McCree was embarrassed, refusing to meet Hanzo's eye, but Hanzo did not seem bothered at all.

Outside of the station, McCree found a part of Tokyo that seemed more tame. The buildings were less densely packed together, and there were fewer skyscrapers. It gave the impression of a European city – stately and proud. If Shinjuku was a wild, urban jungle then this part of Tokyo was more like a cultivated botanical garden. The look of it was not the only difference, but the smell had changed as well. He knew that the city of Tokyo was coastal, but it was such a vast city that his hotel was nowhere near the water. He could have taken an elevator to the highest floor of his hotel, looked out with a pair of binoculars, and still been unable to make out a single wave. Here, the scent of brine was distinct, and even though he still couldn't see the sea, he knew it was there.

McCree was too tired to make any attempts at conversation, but it didn't seem to bother Hanzo, who led the way, checking street signs as they went. Because of the hour, the air was chilly, and McCree found himself covered in goosebumps, rubbing his bare arms as they walked. The silence between them was comfortable. McCree studied how Hanzo walked – his back so straight, his head held high, his gaze seeming to judge every person and every thing they passed. He was like an emperor, McCree thought fondly.

The streets became more busy in the direction Hanzo led. For once, McCree noticed that he was not the only tourist. Even though he could not yet see anything worth drawing foreigners out here, it was clear they were all heading to a single destination. He heard the chatter of Australian English, a couple crowded over a map. A group taking up the whole sidewalk argued in Portuguese; McCree and Hanzo pushed through them. In an alley, they passed a woman on her cellphone, speaking in Chinese. With each person they encountered, each language McCree identified, his excitement grew. He knew Hanzo must be taking him somewhere impressive.

And finally, they emerged. The place was unremarkable except in size. It looked like an entire city of long warehouse buildings, and they were _huge._ Dozens of football fields could have been nestled comfortably in this space. Men in rainboots and black aprons drove around on the oddest carts – a platform to stand and store cargo on, steered by a large round wheel. These carts sped around, cutting sharp turns around parked trucks, dodging tourists in their way. It was a strange sight, and McCree couldn't imagine what this place was or why they had come here. It gave the impression of being some behind-the-scenes Japanese thing that he shouldn't be witnessing.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“This is Tsukiji, the largest fish market in the world,” Hanzo replied.

Largest city. Largest fish market. Could Japan do anything in a normal scale?

Hanzo led him to the nearest of the buildings. It was wonderful chaos. Packed with narrow stalls, the walkways between them were only just wide enough for the men on their carts to navigate. At each stall, the freshest goods McCree had ever seen were being sold. There were fat pink tentacles vacuum-sealed in plastic wrap, thick black stalks of seaweed as long as McCree was tall, clams with meaty orange insides, slippery eels that still bled from where their heads had been sliced off, lobsters the size of cats kept alive in coolers filled with sea water, crabs still scuttling through boxes of sand, snails wider than McCree's forearm, and so much fish. Fish as red as blood, fish bigger than a man, fish with spines down their backs, fish with iridescent scales... Fish of every size, shape, color imaginable packed on beds of ice. It wasn't only seafood being sold here, though. There were peaches as plump as a baby's head, more varieties of ginger than McCree had previously known existed, watermelons grown in the shapes of hearts or triangles or squares, bunches of grapes like clusters of pingpong balls – fruit and vegetables all so perfect that McCree found it hard to believe he wasn't looking at photographs of food that had been edited on a computer.

The most astonishing sight were the slabs of gigantic tuna being carved by saws, then further cut from the bone by men with knives like machetes. The skin and other inedible pieces were tossed aside, but the meat was being packaged with the care of love letters. Hanzo stopped at one of these stalls and spoke with the butcher. He was a quiet man who was probably used to intimidating other tourists, but of course no one could out-intimidate Hanzo. They bartered, and by the end the man was all smiles as he cut thick cubes of pink tuna meat right from the wet carcass and shoved them into a plastic container.

“Breakfast,” Hanzo said, holding the fish out to McCree. He picked up a piece with his fingertips and popped it into his mouth.

McCree loved sushi, but he was shocked. This fish hadn't even been cleaned. It had probably been alive, swimming, enjoying its life less than two hours prior. But he took a piece anyway, preparing for the worst, only to find that it was heaven. Still salty from the ocean, it needed no sauce or seasoning. The meat was buttery, sweet. They scarfed the rest of the tuna down right there, and then moved on to a stall where McCree bought a pack of the biggest, reddest strawberries he had ever laid eyes on. They were nearly twenty dollars for a carton of six, but he found them to be totally worth it. So saccharine and juicy, so moist and refreshing, that both men moaned as they ate them. McCree knew strawberries would never taste the same way again.

As they toured the place, dodging the carts and stopping to stare at everything, McCree thought of how much he wished he could share these moments with everyone back at home. At the same time, though, he cherished these days alone with Hanzo and wouldn't have wanted anyone else tagging along. “What's a good souvenir from Japan? Not from here, I mean. Somethin cheap so I can get somethin for everyone,” he asked Hanzo.

They stopped at one of the countless stalls to watch a man shelling oysters, his movements a blur of speed. “We could go to a 100 yen store,” Hanzo said, “It is nothing like your American dollar stores.”

“Hm. Maybe,” McCree said, “To be honest, I don't know what most of em would want. This is the first time we've been together since Overwatch broke up. I don't know a lot of them as well as I used to.” It was a thought he had privately for weeks, but had been reluctant to vocalize.

“What about candy? Japan has very unique candy. Tourists seem to especially enjoy the KitKat bars. You can buy bags of them very cheaply.”

McCree nodded in agreement. The idea sounded just fine; he knew everyone back home loved sweets. He wished he could have got something more meaningful, but, at the same time, there was no way to capture the wild, wonderful essence of this country. He could have spent a thousand dollars on each of them, and still they wouldn't understand.

“Yesterday you said that Overwatch is like your family,” Hanzo said. McCree waited for a followup question, but it never came. They slipped down the next aisle, where a man tossed shrimp into barrels based on some measure of quality that McCree and Hanzo could not comprehend.

Somehow, McCree ended up talking. He hadn't meant to, especially after Hanzo left in a huff yesterday, but once he started, he just couldn't stop. He told Hanzo about growing up in the Deadlock Gang, where he had been the best shot out of all of them. Despite his youth, some days he had felt like their king. And then about Gabriel Reyes, who had somehow busted the whole operation as though they were no more than a bunch of shoplifting teenagers outside a mall. How Reyes had threatened to turn him over to the police, where he'd rot in prison for life, unless he joined Overwatch. And how Reyes had been his whole world – his boss, his friend, his teacher, his father. He had never told anyone about his complicated feelings for Reyes, a man he had been both terrified of and in awe of, hating him sometimes, then loving him.

“He's been dead for years now, but I still hear him in my head,” he admitted.

Hanzo was an attentive audience, despite that several of the stories he had already been told while they were drunk. He didn't ask questions, but his eyes were thoughtful, and even while they walked around side-by-side, he made certain to make eye contact. They stopped at every specimen of seafood or produce that caught their eyes, but Hanzo never interrupted or seemed disinterested.

So McCree kept going. Talk of Reyes led to talk of Blackwatch, which turned to the subject of Moira. McCree told Hanzo about how he hated her when they had recruited her; she was cold, demanding, ruthless, and brought out the worst in Reyes. She had been exasperated wholeheartedly with McCree's shenanigans, always chiding him and Reyes like they were children, and somehow he had come to appreciate her dry humor and teasing. He confided in Hanzo that every single time they went head-to-head with Talon, he dreaded running into her, because he didn't think he could shoot her, not in a million years. “A real bitch,” McCree said, but fondly, as he recounted the innumerable times she had saved his life. Which led to the topic of Angela, and McCree told Hanzo how she had been the one to save Genji's life, and how she nagged him relentlessly like a mother hen to stop smoking. Which brought him to Amari, who almost _had_ been his mother, in a sense. And that, in turn, led to Fareeha, which led to Lena, and so on and so on... Hanzo never growing tired of his rambling, never seeming uncomfortable about the subject. He could tell how much it meant to McCree, to finally be able to voice his love for all of these people and their importance in his life.

When they emerged back outside after their tour of the market, in order to move on to yet another unexplored building, Hanzo finally interrupted him. “It looks like rain,” he said, staring up at the churning sky, “Let us head back.”

It was midday, and so humid that the walk back to the station felt more like a swim. They had only made it a few blocks when the grey clouds opened up and released a thick, warm deluge of rain that made the city feel swampy and glum. The drops seemed bullet-sized, soaking through their clothes and shoes, and the streets filled with puddles within minutes. Umbrellas opened, and weaving between the crowds in the sidewalks became an obstacle course for McCree, who was a head taller than everyone else. Hanzo made some halfhearted attempts to find a taxi, but they were all full as they passed.

“It is still early for monsoon season to start,” Hanzo said. McCree had never lived anywhere with a monsoon season. It was hard imagining that a city as huge and high-tech as Tokyo was under the same weather conditions as Asian jungles.

Hanzo pulled him into a cafe to get out of the downpour. The place smelled heavenly, but had no air conditioning and was stuffy inside. Their wet clothes made it especially uncomfortable. Hanzo ordered something and they sat down at a booth together. McCree felt like a teenager on a date. It wasn't awkward, though. Hanzo wasted time by teaching McCree some Japanese, and McCree especially wanted to know the bad words.

“ _Kutabare!_ ” McCree said, spitting the word directly into the face of the young employee who was setting their dish down on the table between them. She recoiled from him, hurrying back behind the counter.

Hanzo laughed his contemptuous bark, and McCree sunk low in the booth, his face red. “You just said _fuck you_ to that poor girl!” Hanzo said, his shoulders shaking in aftershocks of laughter.

The thing he had ordered was obscene. Slices of toast four inches thick, drizzled with honey and buried under scoops of melting green tea ice cream. They dug in, McCree shoveling it in his mouth with moans of appreciation. Too sweet and decadent for him to ever eat back at home, but here in Japan, a land where nothing could be done in a remotely normal way, a dessert like this seemed fitting.

“It's a shame I can't take you to Osaka,” Hanzo said, and he told McCree about the foods he loved there. Okonomiyaki, a savory pancake made by mixing the batter with cabbage and other ingredients of your choice, then adding Japanese mayonnaise, bonito flakes, and dried seaweed. Takoyaki, which were fried balls of breaded octopus. Grilled meats, deep fried everything, fresh crab legs, bowls of noodles... He described dozens of dishes like a man in love, his eyes glossing over at the memories.

And McCree jumped in, “If you were in Overwatch...” he started, and, despite the visible tension that flickered across Hanzo's face, he went on. He described mouthwatering squid ink risotto that he had tried in Venice, and plates of spaghetti soaked in a salty-sweet fish and tomato sauce, all of it served with white wine and fresh bread. He went on to Mexico – the grilled corn cobs covered in spices and sauces, the tamales overflowing with vibrantly seasons meat and melted fresh cheese, the tacos he bought off street vendors filled of mysterious animal parts that were so delicious they could bring a man to tears. In Egypt, Amari had made him try grilled stuffed pigeon, and he had come to love the rich fava bean stew. And in Germany, all the sausages and beer!

It became a game. For every delectable Japanese dish that Hanzo tempted McCree with, McCree countered with something he had eaten while traveling the world with Overwatch. Both men were not oblivious to the subtext of this competition – _if you come with me_ versus _if you stay –_ that neither wanted the day to come when the other would be gone.

When the rain ended, they got up from their booth and returned to Shinjuku. The city was left a wet, miserable mess. People took taxis to avoid being out on the waterlogged streets, while others crowded inside of stations or stores. Those who did brave the puddles in the sidewalks kept their umbrellas opened, just in case, so McCree was being battered from all angles. Hanzo offered to try again to hail a taxi, but the hotel was so close that it seemed a waste of money.

“So, what's up with the penguin?” McCree asked, pointing. It was a building he had passed every day, tall and gaudy, with that cartoony penguin on its peak. The penguin itself was gigantic, probably three or four times McCree's height, and it wore a crown.

“He is the mascot of the store. It is a popular chain,” Hanzo said. And, before McCree could stop him, Hanzo led him inside.

If McCree had expected organized, easily shoppable aisles like at a department store back in America, then he would have been left dumbfounded and overwhelmed. But he had been in Tokyo at this point long enough to expect the unexpected. Like everything else about the city, it was loud, colorful, tightly packed chaos. The aisles were barely wide enough for a single person to navigate, the shelves stacked to the ceiling with merchandise. The first floor was an explosion of snacks and candies, like a wholesale junkfood warehouse on hallucinogenic drugs – a processed, artificial flavored mockery of the mindblowing market they had spent their morning at. Hanzo pointed out the selection of KitKat bars, and McCree snatched up a shopping basket. Green tea, cherry blossom, cheesecake, wasabi, sake... Hanzo read the flavors for him, and McCree gleefully picked up each variety. Leaving the display behind, Hanzo pointed out other things that McCree refused to buy. Bags of dried seahorses, sheets of candied seaweed, shrimp and squid crackers, a container of chips that Hanzo said he liked that was potato salad flavored.

They made their way up all the floors, none of which were boring. One floor had nothing but toys and costumes. McCree wove between the shelves, amazed at the figures and merchandise of things he did not recognize. Hanzo pointed out the characters he could name, showing McCree the most popular titles, occasionally finding ones that he said Genji had enjoyed in his youth. McCree, who still struggled to move past the bitter Blackwatch Genji, couldn't imagine him ever watching cartoons. There was another floor packed full of home goods, where McCree lingered in front of a display of decorative chopsticks, thinking they might make good souvenirs for the others, but unsure if any of them could even use them, especially Winston with his massive ape hands and Torbjorn with his prosthetic. McCree nearly passed up the floor of beauty and health products, but he was so relived that he hadn't when they found face masks made from placenta, tiny handheld vacuums intended to fix inverted nipples, and something with a label that said in English “Ultra Hard Guzzle Clim Wax” that even Hanzo had no explanation for. The sights never ceased to impress him – electronics, perfumes, clothing, luggage – none of it in any order whatsoever.

At one point, McCree took an escalator to the next floor and ended up facing a section that was roped off. A sign in English and in Japanese said to only enter if you were over 18. McCree passed under the rope, unable to resist his curiosity. When he noticed what the products were around them, he was slapped in the face with shock and embarrassment. Shelves of sex toys, dirty magazines and DVDs, bondage gear. Red in the face, unable to make even a joke about it because of his shame, he turned to retreat. Hanzo seemed relieved to be leaving.

“Hey,” McCree said, stopping to look at something, “What're these doin in here? They seem outa place.” Bottles of soda had been packaged right beneath the display of vibrators. They were popular brands that he recognized from the hundreds of vending machines they passed a day. “In case you get parched while browsin?”

Hanzo shook his head. He looked uncomfortable. “Those are actually lubricant.”

Of course. Leave it to Japan to make even innocent bottles of soda into something sexual. “Oh,” McCree muttered. He refused to look Hanzo in the eye, the humor drained from his face. Hanzo, similarly, would not make eye contact. He feigned interest in a loose thread on his sleeve. Before McCree could question his actions or stop himself, he picked up a bottle and dropped it into his basket.

“No,” Hanzo said, a little too quickly.

“W-what?”

The two men, equal shades of mortified red, could not even meet each other's eyes.

“I simply mean that there are better quality - “

“It's just a gag,” McCree said, “A stupid souvenir.”

“Yes, of course - “

“If I were gonna use it, I'd want something else, y'know. But I ain't. So...”

And both men, in unison, as they hurried out of that part of the store: “It doesn't matter.”

 

* * *

 

They spent the rest of the evening exploring the other shops around the station. It was easy to forget about the contents of his shopping bag while they were out in public, but once they returned to the hotel, McCree was as so anxious about the lubricant that he couldn't even force conversation, couldn't even glance at Hanzo's face. He hurried to use the bathroom, just to get away from him for a second, then brushed his teeth, then showered - anything, anything, to waste time before confronting Hanzo about the implications of his purchase. Of course he didn't mean anything by buying it! It was only a souvenir! Except if the occasion to use it arose, it would be nice to be prepared. Right? But not that he expected it to!

“Shouldn't we check in on Genji? Maybe bring him some food?” Hanzo asked as finally McCree ran out of things to do in the bathroom. He had thrown on the free bathrobe that the hotel provided, although it was so small for him that even with it tied, his broad, hairy chest burst out. It only barely managed to cover his lower half. Hanzo snorted, a third, previously un-experienced kind of laughter. 

“Uh. No,” McCree said quickly, digging through his bag for a pair of sweatpants, careful not to expose himself as he bent over to pull them on, “Genji's stomach is what's making him sick.”

Hanzo's set his bow and quiver on top of the desk and took the seat in front of it, blocking the television, which was playing some kind of documentary about bike trails in a nearby city. “Jesse,” he said, “Does my brother still eat?”

“Huh?” McCree was surprised. “What? Yeah. I mean, he doesn't really do it in front of me, or anyone, really. But he does. I mean, he still has all his _parts_. Uh. Mostly. No legs. And uh. Only one arm, y'know. I reckon his lower jaw is kinda gone too. But his inside parts are still all right?”

Hanzo did not seem comforted by this. His face was dark, his eyes distant. McCree could sense the walls being rebuilt around him, as if the whole day they had shared no longer mattered.

“Hanzo...” McCree sighed, “I told you. Genji doesn't want you to hate yourself over this anymore. And like you said yesterday – it was you or him. Both of you were makin' bad decisions.” And then he pulled out the same words that Genji had used: “That was a different Hanzo. A different Genji.”

“I ruined his life,” Hanzo said, his tone sharp enough to cut McCree to the bone. He sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling at his damp beard, trying to invent the right words to say.

“You think he's ruined now? He ain't. He's really, honestly happy, Hanzo. Well, he's tryin' to be. But he can't, on account of you. He wants you to be able to move on and be happy, too.”

“You keep saying this, but you do not understand.”

“Neither do you,” McCree said, so exasperated that he wanted to throw his arms in the air and give up, “Genji wants to be your friend. He loves you. He doesn't care about anythin' that happened before. Just forget about what happened, Hanzo. He has.”

“That is easier said that done.”

“It is,” McCree agreed, “But that's why we're here. We wanna help.”

“So you keep saying.” Hanzo's teeth were clenched, his brows knitted. McCree recognized the anger in his face. He expected the man to get up and storm off. Instead, though, Hanzo just sat there seething. McCree sighed. He only really knew of one way to diffuse the situation, before it got out of hand.

“Thanks for showin' me around today. That market was wild,” he said, and he opened his arms up wide, inviting Hanzo to come into them.

The tension in Hanzo's face began to unravel. His body seemed to extend from the chair like a snake uncoiling in very slow motion. He slid in between McCree's arms, pushing McCree back down onto the pillows, letting himself drop limp against McCree's bare chest. “You are welcome.”

Something creeped in McCree's ribs, stirring his heartbeat. He stared into Hanzo's face, his eyes burning and intense with feeling, but Hanzo couldn't stand the way that McCree looked at him, so he reached around and slapped at the light switch. In the dark, the two men listened to each other breathing, hands curious, roaming each others bodies over their clothes. Hanzo wiggled back just long enough to tug his ribbon out. When McCree grabbed his hair in both fists, Hanzo threw his head back so that McCree's grip sent sharp pain across his scalp. He gasped, shuddered, leaned away to encourage more of it. McCree obliged, tangling and pulling, hearing the tiny snaps of strands breaking around his knuckles. He dragged Hanzo in closer, wedging one of Hanzo's thighs between his legs, rolling his hips against him, his body shivering at the contact.

When Hanzo grabbed for his hips, McCree thought he might die from desire, but instead Hanzo was shoving him back, urging him away, the heat gone from his eyes and replaced with panic. "I must shower before we go to sleep," he said, climbing back out of the bed. 

"Really? You wouldn't rather shower in the mornin'?" McCree asked, trying - unsuccessfully - to hide the hurt from his tone.

"I won't be long, but there is no need to wait up for me," Hanzo said, fumbling in the darkness for the handle to the bathroom door. When it opened, a rectangle of light flooded into the room, illuminating Hanzo for just an instant as he stared down at McCree in the bed. He was breathing hard - nearly panting like a dog - but it was clear from his confused expression that while his body may have wanted one thing, his head wanted another. _What did his heart want, though?_ McCree wondered, as he watched the man lock himself in the other side of the bathroom door.


	5. Monogatari

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is absolute sappy garbage, and it's technically not complete, but I decided to upload the rest of day 4 as a separate chapter so that the explicit scenes could be skipped. So - yes - the next chapter after this one is going to be pure porn. If you don't like that kind of stuff, then you can just read this chapter and skip the next one, picking up again on the one after that.

For the fifth day in a row, McCree was dragged from his sleep early. This morning, it was thanks to the ringing of his cellphone. He had been having a lovely dream that he was back at the cat cafe, although he couldn't recall the details, just a sense of comfort and safety and happiness. But then the shrill noise had jerked him awake, ruining everything. Although at least the sun was up when he opened his eyes. He sat up in bed, scratching his beard, and tried to plan how he could reach over Hanzo to pick up the phone he had left charging on the nightstand, but Hanzo surprised him by passing it to him and stretching out to enjoy the additional bed space that had been freed up. The sight of him yawning into the pillows was like a punch right to McCree's heart. He could barely talk as he answered: “H-hello?”

“Jesse. Did I wake you?”

“No, you're fine. What's up?”

“I just wanted to call you with an update. I reached Tribhuvan International Airport yesterday afternoon. I called your room, but there was no answer.”

“Sorry. Yeah. I was with Hanzo.”

“That makes me very happy to hear. Are the two of you getting along?” McCree nearly laughed into the phone. How could he answer that? He glanced down at Hanzo, his black hair pooled beneath his head on the white pillows, the sunlight making his face glisten. He was smiling up at McCree in a way that was so intimate it made his insides turn to jelly.

 _Genji?_ Hanzo mouthed up at McCree.

McCree covered the speaker with his palm and grinned down at Hanzo. “He wants t'know if we're gettin' along,” he whispered.

“We absolutely are not,” Hanzo replied, shaking his head. He was still smiling, though, and McCree's heart ached. Damn, when could they stop beatin' around the bush? Why couldn't he just hang up on Genji right now and smother Hanzo in kisses? But he knew this was as delicate as walking on a tightrope. If he did anything too extreme, if he tried to be too bold, he'd trip himself up, and then he might as well just kiss Hanzo goodbye.

“Eh, I dunno, Genji,” McCree replied, “He's kinda a jackass. He broods a lot and doesn't know what's good for him.”

Genji laughed, “That does sound like my brother.”

“Plus I think he stole 800 yen from me two days ago,” McCree added.

Hanzo bit his lower lip to keep himself from laughing. McCree nearly moaned into the phone. _Damn_ , what he wouldn't give for Hanzo to bite him.

“I am surprised! Surely there was a misunderstanding. Hanzo would never do that. He has his own fortune to spend, inherited from our father.”

“A misunderstandin', yeah. I'm sure you're right.”

“Well,” Genji said, changing the subject, “I arrived at the monastery yesterday. We are now on our way back to Tribhuvan. I imagine we will be back in Tokyo sometime tomorrow.”

“Awright. Sounds good to me,” McCree said. But it didn't sound good to him at all. Why couldn't the next flight be a week from now? A month from now, even? Or maybe there were no more flights in and out of Japan for as long as he lived. Yes, that'd be ideal.

“My Master is very excited to meet you, Jesse. It fills me with joy to know that I will finally be able to introduce you both.”

“I'm glad too, Genji. See you tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow. Thank you, Jesse. If you can bare to spend one more day with Hanzo, just to ensure that he does not disappear, then I would be greatly indebted to you.”

“You're gonna owe me one, _amigo_. But I'll see what I can do.”

Once they had said their farewells and McCree hung up the phone, he returned his attention back to Hanzo, who was staring up at him with a curious expression. “What was that about?” he asked.

“Genji uh... He says he's still not feeling well. He wants just one more day to rest. Thinks he ate somethin' on the plane that didn't agree with him, y'know? But he says tomorrow he'll feel better for sure. He wants me to entertain you again.”

“Very well,” Hanzo sighed, “I suppose I can play tour guide one more day.” And, before McCree could grab him and pull him back into the sheets, Hanzo got up and began to dress.

 

* * *

 

 

For brunch, Hanzo selected a small, busy restaurant just off the main street outside of the station, where McCree had been surprised to find there was no wait staff – just a touch screen machine where he had been able to order an entire meal for the equivalent of about three American dollars. The machine printed a ticket for him, and they took a booth near the window, so that they could people watch while they waited for their food. Only a minute or two passed before someone emerged from the kitchen to trade their tickets for what they had ordered. Hanzo had called it a “set meal” - a bowl of white rice, a breaded and fried pork cutlet, a dollop of potato salad, and a cup of steaming miso soup. It was a weird thing to eat first thing in the morning, McCree thought, but it was a hell of a lot tastier than anything he could find back at home for the same price. He was clumsy with chopsticks, but he noisily shoveled the food to his mouth while Hanzo talked quietly.

“As a member of Overwatch, I imagine you know something of my family's past.”

McCree tensed. Was this really a good path of conversation to go down? Swallowing, he nodded. “You come from a long line of specially trained ninjas or somethin'? 'Cept at some point, they went down the wrong path, turned to organized crime.”

“That is the history in a single sentence, I suppose, yes. Something that you must understand about organized crime in Japan is that while these clans such as the Shimada are responsible for much illegal activity, they maintain strict codes of honor and contribute a great deal to society. The police turn the other cheek because many yakuza take care of people when they are allowed to do their business in peace. For example, they might protect local businesses from petty crime, or provide supplies to entire villages after natural disasters, or contribute funds to building new infrastructure, or donate to legitimate organizations. The law does very little to shut yakuza activity down, because they are not like common thugs found elsewhere in the world.”

McCree's mouth was full, but he nodded to show his understanding.

“The problem was that my father allowed too many villainous people to join the clan, and the honor code was forgotten. That was when your people stepped in. Overwatch broke apart the Shimada clan, yes, but some of the most important former members still use the Shimada name when they commit crimes. I have been fighting to take out the remaining members by myself. In particular, as of late, I have been following a man named Jinzaburo. Jinzaburo was close to my father. I remember vividly the impression he made upon me when I was a child. He was a small man, with a prominent mole on his cheek, and an impressive tattoo on his back of a samurai riding horseback. He used to specialize in weapons trafficking, but without a prominent family backing him now, that game has become far too dangerous to play. Gun laws are so strict in Japan that even most criminals would not dream of risking themselves being caught with one. Instead, he now spends his days bullying local businesses. In the past, the Shimada clan protected businesses around Hanamura from thieves and bankruptcy in exchange for a large tax we imposed on the shop owners. Once the clan was destroyed, these shop owners stopped paying money to the clan, and this man, Jinzaburo, has been threatening them ever since. I believe this is a good opportunity to catch him, because I know he has been doing business around Hanamura. However, I cannot be seen snooping around there, because he knows my face. If I am seen, he will go back into hiding, and I do not know when I will uncover his trail again. It has taken me this long. I need to end this now.”

“Okay,” McCree said, “I'll do it.”

Hanzo's brows jumped up to his hairline. “What?”

“Like I've said about a thousand times, I'm willing to help you.”

“But I have not even given you all the details. You know nothing of how dangerous this man is. And we do not even have a plan.”

McCree shrugged. “It don't matter. I rarely knew what to expect with Overwatch missions either. All I know is I said I'd help you, and I'm gonna. I'm a man of my word.”

“That is foolish of you,” Hanzo said, his tone as chiding as always. But then his expression softened, and his gaze became tender. As he nudged his food around with his chopsticks, looking down at his plate, he smiled.

McCree smiled back at him. “That's why you were tellin' me all this, right? So I could help you out. You weren't just talkin' for fun.”

Hanzo's eyes were still on the pork at the end of his chopsticks. He dipped it into the plum sauce and watched the excess drip back down on the plate. “I suppose I was hoping for that, yes,” he admitted.

Both men were quiet for a few moments. The restaurant had filled up while they were eating, mostly with single diners in their suits or work uniforms. Thanks to the body heat, and the sizzling fryers in the kitchen, and the lack of decent air conditioning anywhere in the country, the place was sweltering. McCree downed his glass of water, rubbing the condensation on his fingertips into his sweating forehead. Hanzo immediately reached over to grab the pitcher from the end of their table and poured him a refill.

“Can I say something that'll probably piss you off, but I think you need t'hear it anyway?” McCree asked.

Hanzo's smile snapped back to a scowl.

Without waiting for him to answer, McCree continued, “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. You're such a good man. It hurts me to see you always beatin' yourself up over the past. I'd do damn near anythin' to help you feel happy.”

Hanzo took his cup of soup in his hands and busied himself by taking long sips. McCree flicked some grains of rice off the tabletop, wishing he hadn't spoken up at all. Why'd he always have to put his foot in his mouth? The rest of their meal was eaten in absolute silence. McCree ate every last bite of food from his plates just to busy his mouth and keep himself from saying anything else stupid. When no distractions remained, Hanzo finally spoke up. “What do you want to do with the rest of the day?”

McCree blew a sigh through his pursed lips and leaned back in his seat, tapping his chin. “Well, if you want my honesty... I reckon this'll be our last day together. At least alone. So... I kinda want to do something special, y'know?

“Special?”

“Yeah. I dunno. I just feel like we've had a good time together, y'know? I liked gettin' to know you.”

He hoped that Hanzo didn't ask for further clarification, because he wasn't sure that he could provide it. For a quiet moment, Hanzo pulled at his goatee, and McCree feared an insult was coming. But then Hanzo rose to his feet. “Very well. I have an idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

They got on a train, the kind that McCree was familiar with now – sleek and fast and always punctual – but after maybe half an hour, they got off at a smaller station and switched to a tiny train, hardly more than an old-fashioned trolley. They sat side-by-side, and McCree watched out the window. On all sides of them were low mountain ranges that grew green with dense forest. “Where're we goin'?” McCree pestered him.

Like an exasperated parent, Hanzo replied: “You will see when we get there.”

The tracks they followed curved around a sharp bend, and then McCree saw it. A vast expanse of cobalt, shimmering in the cheery spring sun. The smell of salt hit him hard, and he breathed in deeply, appreciating its familiarity. “The sea...” McCree muttered, turning to Hanzo with a wild grin, “Awful romantic, don'tcha think?”

Hanzo ignored him, although his lips were pursed into a thin smile.

The trolley stopped at a decades-old station. It looked nothing like the stations he was used to; no restaurants or shopping malls inside - just a quaint little wooden building, with a couple of barren platforms. They walked directly off the train, out a set of turnstiles, and into the open air. This was a seaside town, no skyscrapers in sight. In fact, none of the buildings around them looked more than two stories tall. There were more bicycles than cars on the streets, and the people here who were not tourists seemed simple and old-fashioned.

“There is our destination,” Hanzo said, pointing in the distance, “Enoshima.”

It was an island just off the shore, connected to the mainland by a long footbridge. The word island hardly seemed correct; it was barely more than a rock. McCree imagined its perimeter could be walked in less than a day. Most of the island seemed to be covered in impenetrable forest, but for the nearest shore, where the footbridge ended and a few buildings had sprouted. Rising from the treetops at the island's center was an alien-looking tower made of steel.

They began the walk towards the island, side-by-side. Underneath the bridge was an expanse of beach, the golden sand battered by the frothing white tide. The weather, in McCree's opinion, was perfect for a dip, but apparently no one else felt the same way. Men fished from the sand, and there were some people who had taken off their shoes and were kicking around and enjoying themselves, but no one was in the water. Hanzo told him that it was because, despite the weather, it was still spring. No one would go swimming until it became summer. Japanese people were very concerned with the seasons.

“It's pretty,” McCree said, “But why'd we come here?”

There was a moment of silence while Hanzo collected his thoughts. McCree used the pause to glance around, taking everything in. The ocean, so very blue and so very still, spread out all around them. The cry of the gulls and the hiss of the surf against the beach. There was a fragrant breeze that tousled his hair and cooled his sweating skin. And then he saw it. So extraordinary in size that he had mistaken it for a cloud on the horizon. The blue of the sky and the blue of the water had created an illusion that had nearly diverted his gaze.

“Holy shit,” he said, his jaw dropping in awe as he pointed off the side of the bridge.

Far off in the cloudless horizon was the conical peak of Mount Fuji, snow-capped and majestic. He had seen so many mountains in his life, but this one was so iconic in shape that it shook him, like he had finished the last page of a book only to find the main character standing before him. There she was, so isolated in her magnificence, nothing else in sight coming even close to her impressive size, that he felt a pang of loneliness on her behalf.

Hanzo, at his side, was smiling. “There is a myth,” he said, “that a terrible dragon brought hardships to this area long ago. His cruelty knew no limits. The villagers lived in terror. A Goddess named Benzaiten took pity on them. She was intelligent, wellspoken, and beautiful. She believed that she could persuade the dragon to stop tormenting everyone. So she pulled this island forth from the sea and came to live here, hoping to devise a plan. However, the moment that the dragon laid eyes on her, it was love at first sight. He was willing to do anything to have her as his bride. Benzaiten rejected him, expressing that his wrongdoings had ruined any chance he may have had at her hand in marriage. The dragon then lived out the rest of his days in benevolence, hoping to change her mind.”

“Well, did he?” McCree asked.

“Did he what?”

“Change her mind.”

“No,” Hanzo said, “But she saved everyone. He never did anything evil again.”

McCree shook his head, “I don't like this story one bit.”

“Why?”

“Because the dragon changed his ways, but he still never got the love of his life. If the story was mine, I'd say that after the dragon proved himself, the Goddess decided to marry him. And they lived happily ever after on this island.”

They had made it about two-thirds of the way across the bridge. Here, Hanzo stopped at the railing to look out at the view of the sea and the distant Fuji. McCree thought, if he had any guts, it would've been nice to reach out and hold Hanzo's hand.

“The dragon had done unspeakable things,” Hanzo said, “Killed many people. Ruined many lives.”

He glanced over at McCree and found the other man's expression was mirthless. “But he changed,” McCree insisted, “When the Goddess rejected him, he coulda been evil just outa spite. But he didn't. He deserved to be loved in return.”

“Come,” Hanzo said, “Let me show you something.”

They continued down the bridge, and at the end, Hanzo pointed. A pair of stone lanterns stood, one on each side of the bridge, and around each was coiled a fierce dragon, similar to the beast tattooed inside Hanzo's sleeve. Its expression was pure fury. McCree stepped closer, brushing his fingers over its rocky hide.

“See?” Hanzo said, “His love immortalized him. People tell his story to this day. In a way, he is loved too.”

“Bullshit,” McCree said, “Aint the same. The dragon deserves to be loved by his lady. His past don't define him.”

A ripple of tension passed between the two men. Hanzo stared up at the stone jaws of the dragon. For the first time, he wondered if that was sadness he saw in its proud reptilian features. “Jesse...” he muttered.

McCree planted a hand on Hanzo's shoulder. It amazed him how the sound of his own first name could make his face burn. “C'mon, Hanzo,” he said, eager to drop the subject of this depressing story, “Let's get ice cream.”

He had been inspired by the shop directly behind them, which boasted a dozen different soft serve flavors, and had large and tantalizing photographs displayed on the front wall. Hanzo grinned. “Very well, but you have to try an authentic flavor.” They approached the window and he read the characters from the sign aloud to McCree. Salt and milk. Tomato. Horse radish. Green tea.

“What the hell? Can't I just get strawberry or somethin'?”

Hanzo teased him, “I won't allow you to.”

He ordered McCree a cone of taro flavored ice cream, which he assured McCree was a taste that foreigners found safe. It was a pale purple, which McCree raised an eyebrow at, but when he took the first lick, he found it sweet, but also a little starchy and nutty. He nodded his approval. Hanzo, on the other hand, ordered himself black sesame ice cream. When he held it out for McCree to taste, McCree nearly spat it out. “How can you eat that shit?”

“It is an acquired taste,” Hanzo said with a shrug.

They ate in comfortable silence, strolling up the single street that the island possessed. It was perhaps large enough for a single car to drive, but of course there were no cars, and it stretched perhaps a third of a mile before ending at the base of a tall set of stairs. On both sides of the street were so many interesting sights that McCree struggled to take them all in: vendors selling grilled squid or corn cobs or clams, small tourist trap stores filled with souvenirs and candy, countless more ice cream shops, even a place advertising that you could pay to have your feet massaged by fish... McCree just shook his head at that one. Once they had walked the length of the road, both men stared up at the steps in front of them. They led through a massive red torii gate and disappeared into the trees.

“I hope you wore comfortable shoes,” Hanzo said.

“Why? What's up there?”

“We will see where Benzaiten is enshrined.”

They finished their ice cream cones before heading up the stairs. McCree touched the gate with his palm as they passed beneath it; it was old wood, warmed by the sunlight. A little ways up the stairs, there was a stone pool of water, where others were crowded around, using bamboo ladles to pour water over one hand, then the other. Some drank mouthfuls of the water, spitting it out without swallowing. McCree watched, fascinated, as Hanzo mirrored the ritual before passing the ladle to him.“You rinse your left hand, then your right hand. Then you sip of the water to rinse your mouth, but spit it out – do _not_ swallow. This will cleanse you so that you can enter the shrine purified in body and soul.”

McCree scooped water over his cybernetic left hand, then switched, as Hanzo had directed him. Then he sipped from the ladle – wondering how many mouths had touched it first – and immediately spat it out, careful not to dribble over his clothes.

Content with the ritual's completion, Hanzo led them further up the path. McCree could see no end to the stairs. They climbed for several long, exhausting minutes. The steps wove through the trees, and it seemed like they were entering some magical fairy tale forest. When finally they emerged at the top of the staircase, McCree was huffing and sweating. In front of them was an old wooden shrine, where a line of people were waiting to pray.

“Is she there?” McCree asked.

“No. She is _there_.” Hanzo gestured to the left, at a bright red building protected by a stone fence. Banners hung all around the shrine, giving the place a festive appearance. McCree walked closer. He knew this was all only a story, but he tried to imagine the woman within, beautiful enough to tame a dragon. Hanzo noticed the reverence on his face and put a hand on his back, smiling up at him. “There are _some_ versions of the myth where they were married,” he admitted.

“Well why the hell didn't you tell one o' those versions?” McCree asked, “That ending's a lot better.”

“Because it is not as widely believed. She rejected him. _That_ is how the story goes,” Hanzo said.

“Is that the endin' you like?”

For a moment they stood there, neither speaking. Around them, the other visitors to the shrine all seemed so happy. They took photographs of each other or of the buildings. They stood around, pointing at maps and speaking together no different than they would at a zoo, or a museum. But McCree couldn't shake the feeling that this place deserved more respect than that. To him, this place was somber and mystical.

They continued through the winding path – taking countless more steps up, up, up. If it wasn't for all the stairs, McCree might have actually really enjoyed himself. The place was peaceful, nestled in the woods it seemed so isolated, but it still smelled so strongly of the sea. Wildlife teemed around them despite the tourism – squirrels and birds, turtles in the ponds, many stunning butterflies. Most surprisingly, there were cats. Feral cats roamed the shrines, watching them from the trees, or lying idly in their path, showing no fear towards humans. It was hot, the breeze unable to reach through the trees. McCree imagined the Goddess – would she have perspired in this weather? Did Goddesses sweat at all? And the dragon – was it cold-blooded? Would it have reveled in this heat? That was how he continued to take in every last of these details. When the Goddess and her dragon lover had wandered these woods, had the trees been smaller? Did they even exist yet? He stopped, flattening his palm against the bark of a nearby tree, wondering if the pattern inside of it, the rings it contained, would also tell the story of Benzaiten and her dragon. As the dragonflies and hornets buzzed past his ears, he wondered if their ancestors had pestered the couple. Every time his boot touched the ground, he wondered if the dragon's talons would have dug into the same earth, centuries or millennia ago.

Hanzo, always a step ahead of him, was aware of how quiet McCree had become. Over the past few days, he had gotten used to the other man talking his ear off, and he almost wished for more stories about Reyes and the others in Overwatch. He would have even settled for stories about Genji. Perhaps the legend of Enoshima had been a bad tale to tell, perhaps they should not have come here at all. But he failed to understand what about it had made McCree so suddenly introspective.

“We can go to the garden,” Hanzo suggested, “and see from the observation deck.” He pointed at the tower that stood at the peak of the island.

“I dunno if I want to climb anything else,” McCree said, wiping sweat from his upper lip, and so they continued. Sometimes the path would bend and they would catch glimpses of the water. They passed other shrines, other points of interest, but Hanzo led them away from all of it. It seemed he had something else in mind.

Their destination resembled a tomb, made from a pile of mossy boulders. It was the least impressive thing they had passed so far, hardly more than a pile of rocks. It was blocked by a thick rope from which hung various talismans. Climbing over the mound, snarling at them from above, was a dragon of old bronze.

“Lemme guess, the dragon's buried here?” McCree asked, beaming. He did not wait for Hanzo to answer. He approached the monument and shouted up at the sculpture, “I'm on your side, Big Guy! She shoulda said yes!”

Hanzo struck the back of his head with an open palm. “Be respectful! Must you make a scene wherever we go?” His face could not settle on a single emotion – he was scowling, brows drawn over dark eyes, but simultaneously trying not to laugh.

McCree slid an arm around his back, drawing him in close. “Thanks for takin' me here, Hanzo.”

“To be honest, this was purely a whim. I never imagined that you would like the story so much.” Hanzo said.

“What can I say?” McCree teased, “I like dragons. Reckon I'm biased.”

Hanzo tilted his head up to McCree, wearing the smallest smile. McCree was certain that Hanzo was going to let him kiss him. In his chest, his heart rattled around like a trapped bird. He touched the side of Hanzo's face very gently. Then a sharp sound echoed around them, reverberating in their bones, making McCree's heart skip. “What the-?” It was the ringing of a distant bell. As the last vibrations faded to silence, Hanzo slipped from his arms. McCree watched him back away and then disappear up another path.

“Hey!” he called after him and jumped forward to follow. The path led up more stairs, which by now McCree felt wholeheartedly exasperated with. No more stairs for the rest of his life, please and thank you. At the top of the flight was a platform, and McCree wasn't sure what to look at first. His eyes were drawn to the ocean stretching out to the horizon, blue and still and sparkling. But between him and the water was a gate, and on the gate were hundreds, if not thousands, of padlocks. Padlocks of every size and color, like someone had been a lifetime collector and needed a place to display everything. And still, between McCree and the gate of padlocks was one more thing – the bell. It was not of particularly noteworthy size, very unassuming visually, despite the loud chime it made. There was a wooden structure, hardly more than a roof with supports, protecting the bell. It was just large enough for a person, perhaps two or three, to stand beneath. A line of people waited to take their place beneath the bell, pull its rope, and make it sing.

Hanzo stood to the side, watching the next pair approach the bell. The couple was Japanese, both of them young, couldn't be more than twenty-five. A friend was filming with a cellphone camera, taking some time to angle herself before giving the pair a signal to pull the rope. The girl wrapped her fingers around it first, and her boyfriend's larger palm settled on top of hers. They looked into each others eyes, the picture of happiness. When finally, together, they drew down on the rope, the bell called out in a sound that was low and crisp and magical. McCree imagined it was almost like the happy call of a dragon. Both he and Hanzo felt the sound, rich and lovely, moving up and down their spines. McCree could not read his expression; there was no anger or tension in his features, but there was no other emotion there either. Panting for breath, McCree moved in beside him, brushing sweat from his temples with the back of his hand. “What's this?” he asked.

“The Bell of the Dragon's Love,” Hanzo said.

“Hmm?”

“The bell was put here in honor of the dragon's love for Benzaiten. The people who prefer your ending to the story believe that this is the exact spot where the dragon and the Goddess were married. Couples come to ring the bell, and it is supposed to grant them a wish, as well as strength in their relationship,” Hanzo explained.

“I wana do it,” McCree said, “With you.”

“We are not a couple,” Hanzo said, “It would not be appropriate.”

“Please,” McCree said, taking Hanzo by the hands and pulling him towards the back of the line, “Today's our last day together. When me 'n' Genji go back home, who knows when or if I'll ever see you again. So humor me. This moment with you... It's something that I'll always have forever, y'know? Something that ties us together.”

Hanzo had never been forced to face such sentimentality. He was speechless, trying to avoid McCree's intense gaze.

“You remind me a lot of the dragon, Hanzo.”

“Oh?” Hanzo asked, “And do you imagine yourself to be the Goddess?”

“Naw,” McCree laughed, shaking his shaggy head, “Not at all. Cuz if you fell in love with me, I'd have you in an instant. I ain't the Goddess at all.”

“She was known for her eloquence, which is probably the quality you lack most,” Hanzo said, laughing with him, “But perhaps _this_ dragon does not want a Goddess. Perhaps _this_ dragon likes cowboys.”

Hanzo might as well have punched McCree in the gut, because those words absolutely knocked the breath out of him. And Hanzo had the nerve to just smile back at him, almost mocking him, as if he had said nothing of significance. “S-so you'll do it with me?” McCree stammered, “I know it don't change nothin'. But it'll mean somethin' to me, you know?”

In response, Hanzo simply grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him beneath bell. There were people watching from all sides, and their stares filled Hanzo with anxiety, but he would not deny McCree this. Not when McCree had been so respectful of him, and so patient. Not when McCree was going to leave him soon, without another chance. He took the rope, and McCree wrapped his fist around Hanzo's.

“It is customary to make a wish as you pull it,” Hanzo instructed him.

“Well, what should we wish for?” McCree asked, “Oh, I got it!”

“Yes?”

“I want to make a wish on behalf of the dragon,” he said, “I wish that he did marry the Goddess. I wish that they were happy together for eternity. I wish that they're still here somewhere on this island, still in love, still together after all these centuries. I wish the dragon love.”

“You are wasting your wish on a fictional story,” Hanzo chided him.

“I don't see it as a waste. What would you have me wish for?”

“Wouldn't you rather wish for personal love and happiness?” Hanzo asked.

“I ain't foolish enough to wish for us. I know you got your path and I got mine. I'm just happy we have this moment. This is enough for me. So I'll just wish for the dragon instead.”

Hanzo clenched his teeth, overwhelmed and uncomfortable. He stared out at the waves, unable to look in McCree's direction. Together they pulled the rope, and its sound rang out across the sea – sweet, slow, satisfying. They stood for a moment, hands still touching, listening until the last of its echoes disappeared into the surf. McCree felt oddly emotional when they pulled apart, and he stepped away from the bell quickly, somewhat haunted by it.

"So, what's up with the locks?" he asked, glad for the diversion. A stall nearby was selling padlocks for 600 yen. There were permanent markers laid out for tourists to use, and McCree watched as couples purchased padlocks, wrote on their surfaces, and added them to the crowded gates. 

"You write your names on the padlocks, or else you can write a wish. It is just part of the ritual."

So McCree counted the coins out in his palm and jogged over to buy a lock for the two of them. 

“What will you write?” Hanzo asked, hovering at his side.

“Hmm, maybe you should write it in Japanese,” McCree told him, thrusting the lock and the marker into Hanzo's hands.

“Write what?”

“Write something, y'know... somethin' sweet about them,” McCree said.

Hanzo rolled his eyes and bent over the lock, very carefully writing out tiny characters on its metal surface. When he was done, he showed his work to McCree. “This,” he said, pointing at the first elaborate character, “is _dragon_.” His fingertip trailed over the next series of characters, “And this is the _katakana_ for _cowboy_.”

“That ain't what I told you to write at all,” McCree grumbled at him, his face red and blushing.

They went to find a place on the gate to lock it. Hanzo let McCree have the honors, mostly because he was still rather uncomfortable about this all. When McCree had finished, he stepped back to admire it. It felt _right_ to leave this here, proof that he had shared this day with Hanzo. Even when years had passed, and the men had nearly forgotten each other, this padlock would still be here, maintaining that once there had been a moment, however fleeting, when McCree and Hanzo had nearly been _together_ in a significant way.

“You should keep the key,” McCree said, holding it out to Hanzo, “Since you're in Japan. If you ever want to unlock it, you'll be able to.”

Hanzo shook his head, waving McCree's palm away. “The custom is to throw the key into the ocean.”

McCree gripped the key tight and Hanzo led the way back down the steps towards the dragon's shrine. They went past the dragon, winding down the path, until they found themselves at a beach. This one was nothing like the pleasant sand beaches near the footbridge. It was dark and rocky, with scattered tide pools and frothy, aggressive waves. A few people were scattered about, enjoying the view of the ocean or looking for crabs, but Hanzo seemed determined to avoid them, so he began making his way around the coast, seeking to find somewhere out of the line of sight. McCree followed, slowly and carefully, over the slippery rocks. Hanzo was surefooted and graceful, but McCree lacked his sense of balance, and every step he found himself pinwheeling his arms to keep from falling into the water.

“Slow down!” McCree shouted after him, but Hanzo had disappeared around the corner, getting lost behind a shelf of sharp rocky cliffs. McCree clung to them, finding them coated in seaweed and barnacles from high tide. When he successfully shimmied around them, he found Hanzo standing serene, watching the progression of the sun towards the horizon.

“Hey, Hanzo,” he complained, “Why'd we have to come all the way down here?”

Hanzo's expression was devilish. He pulled McCree close to him. “Because I wanted to do this.”

He pushed into McCree like a wave against the shore, craning his neck to steal a kiss. His mouth was businesslike, as serious as the rest of him, but there was an assertive heat there that had McCree melting into his boots. McCree opened his lips for him, and the sweep of their meeting tongues sent a jolt through his system. He moaned into Hanzo's mouth, and Hanzo ate the sound up with relish, his eyelids fluttering closed. McCree grabbed his cheeks, pulling him in to something deeper, more needy, squeezing his own eyes shut, and in the darkness behind his eyelids they were transported away from this island, away from the planet entirely, to some alternate plane of reality where all that existed was the chaotic tangle of energies between them. Hanzo was responsive to it all, panting against his mouth, their lips frantic, desperate, insatiable. They clung to each other so tight that neither man could even catch his breath. McCree wove his fingers into Hanzo's scalp, ruining the neat topknot he wore, forcing his head to tilt back further. Still, they didn't stop, gripping each other like it was life or death. The fire of Hanzo's mouth was burning McCree up from the inside.

The breeze kicked up and Hanzo jerked away, just in time to catch his yellow ribbon that had nearly flown free. The abrupt end to the kiss left McCree crestfallen, untethered. He watched as Hanzo combed his fingers through his hair and tied the knot again. Hanzo's face was lit up with pleasure, his cheeks pink, his lips swollen. He pressed a polite, closed kiss to McCree's mouth, almost as a period at the end of a sentence, and then he stepped back. He looked amused, and McCree knew he was about to tease him for something before he even spoke up: “Jesse. Have you dropped the key?”

“Shit!”

Hanzo watched, unable and unwilling to hide his entertainment as McCree scrambled over the rocks on his hands and knees, trying to locate the key in the crevices and tide pools. He swore under his breath over and over again, until Hanzo squatted beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It is okay, Jesse,” he said, “It is fitting for it to be lost on this spot. Don't you agree?”

“Yeah. Reckon it is,” McCree muttered, rising back to his feet. He extended his hands to help Hanzo up, and then reached for the man's hips, pulling him in close once again. “Now, where were we?”

“Later, Jesse,” Hanzo said as he pressed a finger to McCree's eager lips.

“Why later? Why not now?” McCree asked, pouting like a child.

“It's time to leave.” Hanzo comforted him with one very serious closed-mouth kiss. Despite its lack of warmth, it turned McCree into a trembling, breathless mess. He turned to face the ocean and threw his fist in the air with a whoop of delight. The sound bounced off the cliffs behind them, startling a flock of gulls that burst into the air with a flurry of wingbeats. Hanzo, turning his back to McCree, simply rolled his eyes.


	6. Respite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pure porn from start to finish. I've separated it from the other chapters so that, if it makes you uncomfortable, you can skip ahead to the next chapter and the story should still flow pretty seamlessly.

Back at the hotel room, they wasted no time. Without a word spoken, without even turning on the room lights, they fell back onto the bed. McCree tugged the ribbon from Hanzo's hair, reaching up to knead the silken strands between his fingers. Hanzo rolled on top of him, taking his face in his palms, drawing him closer so their lips could touch. Again, it was fire and bliss. McCree's hips rose off the bed, grinding up into Hanzo's weight, the friction between their bodies creating a pleasure that had them trembling against each other. Breathless, hungry sweeps of mouth and tongue, they kissed. McCree tangled his fingers tighter into Hanzo's hair, pulling tighter and tighter, unable to get enough of how soft and alive it felt in his callused palms. 

“Just fuck me already,” McCree growled against Hanzo's mouth, scraping his teeth over those parted, gasping lips.

Hanzo's hands pulled apart layers and layers of clothing with frantic speed. When finally no fabric separated their sweating skin, all McCree could do was kiss everywhere that he could reach – the bulging muscular throat, those sturdy shoulders, the angles of his jaw, the scales of the dragon tattooed against his breast – and he reached up, clawing his stubby fingernails down Hanzo's back with shaky fingertips. Between the desperate sloppy kisses, Hanzo muttered things in Japanese that drove McCree wild. His lips gathered every syllable, translating them to ecstasy that his body understood even if his ears did not.

In all their rolling and rutting, Hanzo's hands had roamed everywhere within reach, except the one place McCree wanted to be touched most. His hands grappled at the meat of his thighs, explored the rolls and edges of his torso, danced across his neck and shoulders. He wanted to take in every detail of McCree's foreign body – so hairy, so heavy and dark and handsome. He was like a wild animal beneath Hanzo's weight, bucking and panting and furry. And finally his fingers moved between McCree's legs, and the first caress had him jerking off the bed like it burned him, hissing through clenched teeth. Hanzo laughed, cruelly, against McCree's faltering kisses, and he closed his palm around him, kneading him in his grip. The pleasure had McCree losing control of everything, setting off fireworks in his skull. Sometimes he remembered to push back into Hanzo's aggressive fist, but there were moments it was almost like he had blacked out from all the feeling, and could only lay limp and inarticulate against the mattress.

It took nothing for McCree to grow hard, his pulse pounding agony through his shaft. He needed release or he would _die_ , but at the same time he wanted to suffer this way for all of eternity. His useless, suffering, short-circuiting brain managed to latch onto a single stupid thought: _Son of a bitch, I'm about to fuck Genji's brother._ The realization was so filthy that it had him weeping precum into Hanzo's palm.

Hanzo purred against his tongue, “So wet for me...”

McCree nearly came right then, tensing from head to toe beneath Hanzo's weight, but Hanzo was quick to release him, ending the bliss abruptly. McCree fell back into the pillows, soaked with sweat. The pressure between his legs had turned him into a mindless animal. There was nothing on his mind but an orgasm now, specifically one with Hanzo, and he took his suffering out on Hanzo's throat, using his grip in Hanzo's hair to expose more of his muscular neck. He sunk his teeth in, tasting Hanzo's sweat. Hanzo leaned in to McCree's mouth for more, closing his eyes, quivering as McCree's teeth gnashed, scraping until his flesh was thin and raw. When Hanzo could take no more of it, the tenderness in his neck threatening to ruin his pleasure, he shoved McCree back down to keep him from breaking skin. He swung off of McCree, leaving him trembling in the bed alone.

“Hanzo... _darlin'..._ ” it was nearly a sob. How could he leave? How could he leave _now_?

“I'm here, Jesse,” Hanzo whispered to him from across the room, and McCree watched as he dug through the shopping bags, suddenly _understanding_. His heartbeat was like gunshots in his chest. When Hanzo crawled back into the bed, lubricant clutched in his fist, McCree's increasing anxiety was soothed by the tenderness in Hanzo's expression. For the first time, all his walls were down. His lips were just slightly curled upwards in a smile so appreciative, so full of warmth. McCree reached up to trace the contours of his jaw with his cool, metal fingertips, and Hanzo nuzzled into the touch like a dog. “This does not bother you?” Hanzo asked.

McCree didn't need him to elaborate to understand what he was referring to – _him_ taking the lead. “Course not, darlin',” he said. Whatever made Hanzo comfortable, whatever allowed this to _happen_ was fine with McCree. Their mouths met eagerly again, the probing of McCree's tongue drawing sighs and sobs from the other man.

McCree took the bottle from Hanzo and the sound of it opening seemed to be the loudest in the entire room, louder than the air conditioning, louder even than their heavy breathing and his panicked heartbeat. He squeezed a dollop into his palm, his hand snaking between their writhing bodies to grip at Hanzo's girth. Hanzo tensed at the contact, the lubricant initially shockingly cold against his sensitive skin. McCree's mind was an agitated mess. He had never imagined he would be touching Hanzo like this. _Genji's brother –_ his thoughts reminded him. His cock was shorter than McCree's own, but the curve was more dramatic, and he found the flesh to be harder than McCree had ever been, even now, as aroused as he was. Firm and flushed and so, _so_ responsive in his fist as he coated the shaft from base to head. He could feel every quiver, every throb, every flinch.

Hanzo was back to muttering and gasping in Japanese. McCree did not need to know the words, all he needed was to consume them with his kisses. He imagined they were confessions that perhaps Hanzo himself did not even understand. “Hanzo, darlin', you're the sexiest thing I ever laid eyes on,” he cooed to him, dragging his tongue across the splotchy red bruises on Hanzo's throat.

McCree's fingers slipped in the wet mess, gliding up and down, testing the heft of him in his palm. Hanzo clung to his shoulders with both trembling hands, rocking his hips, encouraging the friction and the pleasure. McCree pumped his length harder, using the force of his whole arm, until Hanzo knocked his hand away, his face glistening with sweat, unable and unwilling to take anymore.

For a moment, gasping for breath, both men just stared at each other. It was, of course, McCree who spoke up first, “I've never wanted anything so bad in my whole life as I want you right now...”

Hanzo smirked. “Just think how much worse you'll want me a week from now, when you've gone back to Overwatch.”

What cruel, horrible words. McCree felt deflated, couldn't hide his scowl. He almost wanted to shove Hanzo off of him, forget about their fun. “C'mon, Hanzo. What the hell? Why d'you gotta be such a damn - ”

Hanzo pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. “I suppose I'll have to go with you. If longing for air conditioning was enough to kill you, as you claimed before, then I imagine longing for me would be much more immediately fatal, don't you think?”

McCree's face lit up, his mouth spread in an ear-to-ear grin beneath Hanzo's fingertip. “Are you fuckin' with me, Hanzo?” he asked, and he wrapped his lips around Hanzo's finger, drawing it in to the last knuckle, teasing it with curls of his tongue.

“Fucking with you? Is that really an appropriate turn of phrase to be using right now?” Hanzo laughed, pulling his finger from McCree's lips and bringing it to his own, licking McCree's saliva from his skin.

McCree just laughed, a loud, full-bellied laugh, and Hanzo shut him up with kisses. He slipped his hands back up into Hanzo's hair, forgetting that he was still sticky with lubricant. The full, hot, tight sensation he had been feeling in his chest had spread to his extremities, and his whole body felt like it was glowing, like he was on some kind of drug. He raised his legs up, locking them around Hanzo's hips, pulling him closer in against his body. Hanzo's mouth was fierce against his own, but McCree could feel that he was struggling not to smile as their lips mashed together. 

Hanzo moved into place on top of him, his left arm supporting his weight, sinking into the mattress beside McCree's head. And when McCree looked up at him, half of his view was the dragon emerging from the storms, looming like a threat. McCree nuzzled against the beast's inked coils, kissing the dark scales and tasting the salt of Hanzo's sweat on his tongue. And he looked up, seeing Hanzo's face lost behind curtains of dark hair as he leaned down over him. He wondered what Hanzo was feeling, if it was anything like the way he felt.

And then Hanzo sank into him. It was slow, but without hesitation. McCree arched off the bed, an involuntary reaction to the surge of heat, and Hanzo folded against him, their bodies feeling clumsy, awkward, improper vessels to contain the heaven each felt inside. McCree locked his arms around Hanzo's shoulders, drawing him close, drawing him deeper. They moved together, cool drops of sweat falling from Hanzo's temples onto McCree's face beneath, each one making him shiver. McCree grunted and panted and murmured nonsense, nearly delirious from this final liberation of days of pent-up feelings. Hanzo captured every sound he made with his breathless mouth, and McCree was too drunk on lust to even kiss him back, his lips just gaping and flapping like a fish out of water. Encouraged by McCree's reactions, Hanzo drove into him harder, every thrust of his hips forcing the headboard to crack back against the wall.

McCree felt himself unraveling already, and in his head, all he could hear was the ringing of the bell, as clear as if they were still there beneath it, and Hanzo's grunts against his cheek sounded like the waves crashing against the shore in the background. He saw it behind his eyelids – the key, the same shade of old gold as the lightning on Hanzo's arms, falling from his fist to the black wet rocks. Over and over again the scene played out, and each time the key clattered against stone, the pressure in him built up. And then, instead of the key, he was the one falling. Weightless, golden, wet.

He sobbed out Hanzo's name, and Hanzo seemed to read his thoughts: his right hand coiled around McCree's swollen flesh, his palm and fingers strong and deft from so many years practice with the bow. The grip drew a low moan from McCree, who thrashed underneath him as if trying to get away. Inside of him, all of the right places were being tortured by Hanzo's thrusts, and the addition of this external pleasure had him drooling, convulsing. The bliss stole his vision, alternating stabs of searing white light with the empty darkness of oblivion.

“I'm yours,” he promised Hanzo, who in turn responded with: “You are mine.”

The build up was agony beyond what McCree could bare. He was helpless in Hanzo's pounding fist, so out of control of his own muscles that he could not even lift his head from the pillows. Unable to take a second more of this, he surrendered to the pain, surrendered to the pleasure. Surrendered to Hanzo. He twisted his fingers into the sheets, bucking his hips, chasing death with the help of the friction in Hanzo's fist. He exploded with a sob into Hanzo's palm, a first thick, sticky thread that spilled between the cracks in the other man's fingers. He was soaring around the room, a true out of body experience, picturing the rippling muscles of Hanzo's back as he drove into him again and again and again, and still Hanzo's hand kept going, drawing more and more bursts of fluid out, milking him until he was spilling uncontrollably. He nearly bit through his lip in his efforts to keep himself from screaming, waking the whole damn hotel. His body jerked against the mattress, Hanzo's hand and his cock over-stimulating him now. He'd rather be shot a thousand times than endure another moment of this torture and bliss. He clawed at Hanzo's back, pulled at his hair, grappled with his arms, anything to end the suffering. Finally, nearly weeping, McCree simply begged him to let go.

Hanzo did. He retreated from him, releasing his spent shaft, separating from him. Immediately McCree ached for more contact, feared he had somehow angered Hanzo, not understanding why he would end this divine act so totally. But as he came down from his high, settled back into the prison of his flesh, he understood that Hanzo had not left him empty. He felt the trickle of his cum between his thighs, pooling onto the sheets beneath him. Hanzo's face was red and pouring sweat, his hair stuck to his wet cheeks, but despite the visible exhaustion he was smiling.

He cupped Hanzo's face in his hands, drawing him in, unbothered by the profuse sweat. He kissed him to thank him, kissed him to reward him for his efforts, kissed him like there had never been and would never be anyone so important to him for as long as he lived. Hanzo kissed him back without much effort, barely alive from how hard he had worked for the both of them. McCree tried to pull him down into the bed, but Hanzo kept pulling back away.

“Relax,” McCree said, brushing some of that dark, damp hair from his temples.

“I need to shower,” Hanzo protested, shying away from McCree's fingers and wiping his forehead with the back of his arm.

“ _Please_ ,” McCree begged him, unable to imagine the loneliness of this bed without Hanzo in it.

Hanzo shook his head, unmoved by McCree's sad eyes, and he backed off the bed. When he stood, his legs wobbled, as if he had forgotten how to walk, and he took shaky steps back to the bathroom, abandoning McCree.

“ _Hanzoooo_...” McCree howled for him.

He heard the shower turning on in response.

Defeated, McCree swung his legs out of bed and shuffled after Hanzo, like a kicked puppy with his tail between his legs. In the bathroom, Hanzo stood in front of the sink, using the shower head to rinse his back and chest off with cool water. McCree watched him from the doorway, admiring the shapes of his body, so glad this had finally happened that his heart actually ached.

“Come here,” Hanzo said, curling his fingers to summon him.

McCree obeyed. The spray of chilly water felt incredible on his hot sticky skin. He stood still, smiling, as Hanzo rinsed him off from head to toe. “Is this how you shower?” he asked. He had wondered from the first day here why the showerhead was attached to the sink and not inside of the tub.

Hanzo pointed at the drains on the floor. “Yes,” he said, “In Japan, we only soak in tubs once we are already cleaned. We don't lay in our filth as you Westerners do.”

They took turns squirting body wash into their palms and scrubbing each other's skin. Hanzo's hands were rough as they rubbed over every nook and cranny. He boldly touched him in places that no one had ever touched him before – the joints behind his knees, his armpits, the cleft of his ass. And, once he had touched him everywhere, he went over a second time to assure the soap suds had all been rinsed off. Those hands on him were almost professional in their thoroughness, the same way he cared for his bow, or used his chopsticks, or tied his hair up in that yellow ribbon every morning. McCree melted into the touches, too exhausted to be aroused again, filling with a similar but distinctly different heat.

 _I love him._ It was a realization that frightened him, saddened him, and, above all, it was a realization that must be kept secret, to himself – no doubt about it. Still, he smiled in a sentimental way as he took to washing Hanzo in return. His fingers left not a centimeter of him unexplored, taking advantage of this moment to commit everything to memory. The grid of muscles on his abdomen. The plump muscles of his thighs. The shallow valleys beneath his clavicles. And then his hands slipped back up once more into his hair, massaging suds into his scalp as though apologizing for his roughness earlier. Hanzo whimpered in appreciation, leaning slack into his chest.

Rinsed and dried, the pair returned to the bed, which was still sticky with their sweat and cum, but at least _they_ felt refreshed and cleaned, so McCree figured that was mostly what mattered. He flopped down onto his back, and Hanzo settled down against him, his head on his chest. McCree idly stroked Hanzo's wet hair and Hanzo closed his eyes, relishing the touches.

“ _Hanzo_ ,” McCree sighed.

“Yes?”

“I think I might just be the happiest man alive.”

Hanzo laughed and tilted his head up to kiss McCree's beard. “I am happy as well,” he said, and his eyes were full of many emotions, none of which, for once, was anger.

As heavy as McCree's limbs felt, as exhausted as he was to the core, his mind was wide awake, thoughts racing. It was the best climax he'd ever had, and if only they could wait another twenty minutes, maybe he'd be up for round two. But Hanzo's eyes were closed, and McCree might have thought he was sleeping if not for the feather-light, delicate circles that his fingertips drew across his abdomen. He closed his eyes, just focused on the sensation. It was such a peaceful moment that he did not even notice the caresses had stopped until he felt Hanzo drooling against his chest.

 


	7. Undone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter is so short. It was originally a part of the previous chapter, but I realized I wanted to separate them. If you wanted to skip over the sex, then this is where you'll pick back up again!

In the morning, the room filled with light thanks to the curtains they had forgotten to close. Hanzo woke first, the sun warming his face and creating flashes beneath his eyelids that disrupted his dreams. Some time in the night, he had rolled away from McCree, too hot to share body heat, so without opening his eyes he scooted back in against his side, listening to the rhythm of the other man's breaths. As he listened, he became aware of a lilting sound in the distance, familiar but inappropriate in this setting. Was that calliope music? He finally gave in, opening his eyes, straining all of his senses to understand the song.

Jolted into action by the connection his brain suddenly made, he threw the sheets off himself and stood, searching over the floor for his jeans.

“ _Darlin'..._ ” McCree murmured, stirred awake by the shifting bed and the excited movements, “Where're you goin'?”

“I will be right back,” Hanzo said, and he soothed McCree with a kiss on the mouth that left McCree beaming, half in disbelief. Once he had pulled on his shoes, he hurried out the door without explanation. McCree wasn't worried; Hanzo had left his bow, after all, so he knew that he was returning. He rolled around the empty bed, enjoying the filthy smell of it and the memories from the night before. He found Hanzo's yellow ribbon lost in the pillows and brought it to his face, breathing in the scent.

Only perhaps ten minutes passed before Hanzo slid back into the room, carrying a plastic bag. He brought with him a mouthwatering aroma. McCree sat up on the mattress, holding his arms out to receive him. Hanzo crawled back to his side, leaning in against him, his back to the headboard. “I heard the bread truck,” he explained, beginning to rummage through the bag. He spread the contents out across the foot of the mattress - half a dozen pastries, wrapped in parchment paper, all of them fresh from the oven. McCree grabbed for a croissant, taking a bite into it to discover it was filled with dark chocolate. Flakes of the pastry collected in his beard, and Hanzo flicked them aside with equal parts exasperation and tenderness. Hanzo picked up a pastry filled with red bean paste, which McCree thought sounded disgusting, but when Hanzo offered him a taste, he found it sweet but mild, although the mushy texture was not something he enjoyed – he could only compare it to refried beans.

Hanzo flipped the TV on (there was a special on about a local restaurant that employed a tame monkey), but it only served as background noise, because McCree – energetic after last night – was chattering endlessly. It was something that Hanzo found endearing now. Tuning in and out of the conversation, he was able to pick up that McCree was talking about all of the things he wanted them to do together when they got back to Gibraltar.

“I can't wait to see you in action with that bow o' yours! We'll have to do sessions in the trainin' simulation every day. I'll eat my hat if you can beat my records!”

“I have no desire to see you eat your hat,” Hanzo said, shaking his head, but he was smiling as he licked crumbs from his fingertips.

After finishing his pastry, he got up to make them some green tea using the electric kettle. As he prepared the machine to begin its brew, he half-listened to McCree describing how they could change the setup in his bedroom back at Gibraltar so that they could share it together, except maybe he didn't want everyone to know they were sleeping together, not that it was anything worth hiding, not that he was ashamed, but maybe he wanted to keep it private for a while, so they should probably just keep on sleeping in his shitty little bed, which was actually bigger and less shitty than the one they were on now, and wasn't it kind of nice to -

The phone rang, cutting off McCree in the middle of his monologue.

“That must be my brother?” Hanzo said.

McCree, who was halfway through his second croissant, leaned over the edge of the bed to feel for his cellphone that had been knocked under the nightstand. “Ello?” he muttered, his mouth full.

“Jesse. Have you seen my brother? I tried to contact him multiple times today and yesterday, but he would not answer.”

 _Yep. Genji,_ McCree mouthed to Hanzo, who was pouring hot water into the cups provided by the hotel. “He's... he's here,” McCree said, “Listen, Genji, there's somethin' I need to talk to you about. It's pretty important.”

But Genji interrupted him. He and Zenyatta had just arrived back at the hotel, and he wanted McCree and Hanzo to meet them immediately. McCree had suggested that maybe they wait another day, since they were probably both pretty jetlagged. In reality, he was desperate to draw out his time with Hanzo as long as possible. He could not help but feel like as soon as they reunited with Genji, the fantasy of the past few days would be over. But Genji just laughed at him - “Omnics don't experience jetlag, Jesse! And I am fine. I am used to traveling like this.”

And so McCree lost his opportunity to tell Genji that Hanzo had already decided to return with them, and that any attempted conversation with Zenyatta was just beating a dead horse. After assuring Genji that they'd head up immediately, he hung up the phone and turned to Hanzo, unable to hide the disappointment from his face.

“Is something wrong, Jesse?” Hanzo asked, bringing the cups of tea to the bed and carefully nestling in beside McCree. He passed one cup to the other man, who stared down at the murky green liquid with misery in his features.

“Just, I dunno, I guess I don't want this to end,” he muttered.

Hanzo put a hand on his shoulder. “Jesse, do not worry. This is only the beginning. What happened to your excitement from before?” McCree leaned in against him, balancing his tea against his knee so that it didn't spill. In the time that Hanzo had known him, he had never seen McCree look _sad_. “Do you imagine that I will love you any less, just because we have left Japan?”

McCree sat up, his lips stretching into a wild smile that looked like it would keep growing until it split his whole face in half. “You _love_ me?”

Hanzo's face went red in an instant. “No, of course not! I have only known you a few days. There is no way that I could _love_ you. It was – I just – In Japanese... I meant to use a different word... A mistranslation.”

McCree smirked, himself blushing in response to Hanzo's blushing, and the two men just sat there so embarrassed that their cheeks were probably hotter than the steaming cups of tea in their hands. “O'course it was, Hanzo,” McCree said.

The two finished their tea together without bringing up the topic again, just watching television. Occasionally, McCree would ask Hanzo to explain what was going on in the show, but for the most part they were quiet, just enjoying the last moments in each other's company before having to go and face Genji together. Even if Hanzo didn't agree with McCree that moving forward would change anything, he definitely felt a significance to the moment that he couldn't explain, and he was glad to draw it out to the last second, until their cups were empty and the show was over, and they had no further excuses. Dressing together, then brushing their teeth in the bathroom together, the men still were reluctant to actually leave the hotel room.

They took the elevator up one floor, and McCree counted the numbers on the doors until they got to Genji's. He took a deep breath, fighting the urge to take Hanzo by the hand, and knocked. Genji threw the door opened immediately and greeted both of them with bows. McCree sensed Hanzo tensing beside him.

“Come in!” Genji said, stepping back to allow them into his room.

McCree's eyes went straight past him to Zenyatta. The Omnic was seated at desk, in the twin of the chair that Hanzo had always sat in back in McCree's room, but at the sight of them he stood. He was shorter than McCree, probably around Genji's height, but there was something impressive about his appearance. He was especially shiny and sleek, moreso than the average Omnic McCree had met. He gave off the impression of being particularly clean and well-built. McCree would have willingly admitted to anyone that he struggled to tell Omnics apart. It made him uncomfortable that Omnics were built to give the illusion of human anatomy – bolts where ears should have been, slits where humans had eyes. He didn't like being unable to read emotion in their features. Was Zenyatta happy, or was he on edge? What did he think of McCree? Could they be friendly together? How could Genji be so fond of someone who lacked facial expressions? But McCree cringed at the thought; Genji, too, lacked those. He glanced over at Genji, only to find him openly staring at the dark red and purple bruises on Hanzo's throat. McCree swallowed hard.

“Greetings,” Zenyatta said, bowing his well-buffed, shining head, “Jesse. Hanzo. Genji has told me so much about you both. I am thrilled to finally meet you in person.” His voice was pleasant, soft. Either he was very good at hiding his dislike of people, or he was genuinely kind. McCree reached out to shake his hand, and Zenyatta clasped it between both of his own, locking McCree's fingers in a cold grip. “Peace and blessings be upon you.”

“Uh. Thanks. You too?”

He turned to glance back over his shoulder at Hanzo, hoping to silently communicate with him on the strangeness of this situation. But his heart plummeted like lead into his stomach. Hanzo's scowl was the fiercest that McCree had _ever_ seen.

“What is this?” Hanzo snarled at his brother.

“I thought that it would help you, to meet my Master. I brought him here in hopes that his teachings could bring you peace, as they did for me. In rage and rancor, you are wasting your life away.” Genji put a hand on Hanzo's arm, but the older brother jerked away, his eyes full of pure venom.

“I understand now,” he said, glaring from face to face, “This was all a set-up. You were not sick at all, were you?”

“No, brother, I was traveling,” Genji admitted, “I apologize for the deception, but I only do this for your good.”

“My good? Ha!” Hanzo spat, and he turned suddenly, setting his rage loose at McCree, “You knew, didn't you? All this time, you were meant to keep me preoccupied?”

“Shit. Hanzo, that ain't fair. You know good and damn well that ain't what these past few days have been about,” McCree said, “ _Yeah_ , I knew, but I had no idea this would make you so dang mad.”

Hanzo laughed, a mirthless, bitter, horrible sound. “You had no idea? How else would I react to you _lying_ to me? I thought that you understood. You claimed that you would help me achieve my goals, not try to plot against me so that I would cast them aside.”

“Hanzo, I swear, I stand by what I said then. I'm still willin' to help you. Even if Genji won't, I will. Listen, Genji, that's what I wanted to try and tell you on the phone. This whole plan o' yours is unnecessary. Hanzo said he'd join - ”

“No.”

The room was silent but for the humming of Zenyatta's and Genji's machineries.

“N-no?” McCree repeated, sure he had heard him wrong. After everything had happened the past few days, hell, after the past twenty-four hours, how could everything be such a mess again? “Hanzo, c'mon.”

“I will not join,” Hanzo said, “My decision is final. I do not wish to speak to some _machine_ about my personal life. And that includes you, _brother._ ” He shoved Genji aside, throwing the door opened. “McCree, give me your room key. I must retrieve my bow.”

All of the fight was sucked out of McCree at the sound of Hanzo calling him by his surname again, as if nothing had happened between them. “Please - ”

“McCree. The room key.”

“Hanzo, I - ”

“If you do not give me the room key, McCree, then I will take it from you by force.”

“ _Brother!_ ” Genji gasped.

But McCree was deflated. He took the keycard from his back pocket. “I'll go let you in.”

“If you must.”

Standing in the hallway, looking into the hotel room, Hanzo was back to his imperative, daunting self. Like the stone dragons carved around the lanterns of Enoshima, he was fierce and steadfast. McCree sulked out of the room and down the hall.

“Will you listen to me?” he pleaded, as they waited for the elevator, “Before you go? I won't stop you. Just listen.”

“We are about to be stuck in an elevator together,” Hanzo growled, “Unfortunately, I do not have a choice.”

McCree sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to pull the right words from his frantic brain. “Hanzo, yesterday was the best day of my whole damn life. Yeah, I knew Genji was off doing God-knows-what, but I didn't fight it, cuz I wanted to be alone with you. This wasn't some elaborate plot against you. Genji just thought he could help, and he was wrong, but neither of us did anything out of disrespect.”

The elevator arrived with a chime and both men stepped inside. Hanzo stabbed the number of McCree's floor and stood silent as the doors shut and they began to descend.

“I'm still willin' to help you, Hanzo. Absolutely nothing has changed. Don't leave mad. Please.”

“Everything has changed,” Hanzo said, “You _lied_ to me. I let my walls down around you, and, in response, you lied to my face. You even lied to me while we were in bed together, McCree. How can I believe anything else you say?”

The doors finally opened and Hanzo stormed forward. McCree followed, his head hung to his chest. He'd never felt so defeated and helpless in all his life. He used the keycard to let Hanzo in and stood in front of the door, watching as the other man collected his things. “Hanzo, please. You're breaking my heart.”

“As you have broken mine!” Hanzo hissed back at him, “Do you really wish for me to be happy? At the bell, you wished for the dragon to have love and happiness. You were referring to me, weren't you?”

McCree couldn't answer.

“If so,” Hanzo continued, “then just let me go.”

The words were like a physical blow. McCree recoiled, his eyes burning. “Okay,” he said, “I-I'll let you go. God damn it, Hanzo. I'll let you go. But I love you. Please come back.”

Hanzo stood, once again seeming to tower over McCree despite their difference in height. He had swung his bow in place across his back, and his arms were crossed over his chest, a caricature of fury. “I could never love a man with no respect for my quest to heal old wounds. You offered to help me do that, but in reality, you were willing to say anything I wanted to hear.”

“That ain't true. Like I said, I'm _still_ willin' to help you. I'll go out right now and do whatever you need me to!” But Hanzo pushed past him, back out into the corridor. McCree grabbed his wrist, as gently as possible, “You can leave. I won't stop you. But let's get lunch or coffee or anything first. You don't even have to speak to me the whole time. Please just... don't leave this on such a bad note.”

“No, McCree. I have wasted enough time with you.” Hanzo jerked his arm free and the door slammed shut in McCree's face.

With a moan, McCree buried his face in his hands and stumbled back to the bed. He dropped into it, half-hoping he would just be smothered by the pillows. They still smelled of Hanzo, and the thought made him sick. As a final insult, his fingers found the bottle of lubricant, discarded and forgotten in the bedsheets.


	8. Hope

McCree had no clue if five minutes passed or five hours, five days or five years. Time moved at an illogical pace. There were moments that he dozed off, thinking he had slept through the night, only to wake up and find that the clock claimed only a handful of minutes had passed. Other times, he would see something to hold his interest on the television, blink his eyes, and when he opened them again the whole show had ended. His body experienced the passage of time - he needed to take a piss a couple of times, and at one point he realized he was starving. He rolled over and ate the last of the pastries left over from breakfast that morning. Or had it been yesterday morning? It could not have been much longer than that, because the bed still smelled like sex. Hanzo's long, thin, black hairs clung to the pillows, and it felt like any second now he might step out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips, chiding McCree for leaving toothpaste stuck to the sides of the sink.

_He ain't dead, Jesse,_ McCree tried to convince himself, whenever he felt the sorrow creeping back into his foggy thoughts. He would come back. So far, he always had. He would allow himself to feel guilt, and anger, and shame. But not sadness. Because the moment he let himself get sad about this situation, that meant he had accepted that he had lost Hanzo. That was a reality he didn't think he was ready to face.

And when, finally, there came a knock at the door, McCree felt stupid for ever doubting Hanzo. He jumped to his feet. Of course Hanzo came back to him! And he would get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness. He'd cover Hanzo in kisses from head-to-toe. He'd do anything for Hanzo. Anything. He was so relieved.

Except before McCree had taken so much as a single step to the door, a voice called to him, “Jesse? It is Genji.”

McCree groaned. He shuffled to the nightstand, hiding the bottle of lubricant in the drawer. He picked up the parchment paper that the pastries had been wrapped in, stuffing them all in the trash can beneath the desk. He even tried to make the bed somewhat, to cover up the stains, to hide the strands of their hairs woven together on the white sheets.

“Jesse. Please, open the door.”

“I'm comin', I'm comin',” McCree muttered.

Standing in the corridor, the last people McCree felt like seeing – Genji and Zenyatta both. Genji made himself at home in the chair, his legs crossed underneath him. Zenyatta _floated_ into the room, as if walking wasn't good enough for him or something, and McCree might have hated him for it if he wasn't carrying a brown paper bag filled with McDonald's, the grease leaking through the sides. McCree's stomach growled; he had eaten those pastries, but the promise of a hot cheeseburger was enough to make his mouth water.

“We thought that you might be hungry,” Zenyatta said. How could he sound so tranquil after all that had happened? But still, McCree sat down on the edge of the bed and tore open the bag, grabbing for a fistful of french fries that were still steaming hot.

“So,” Genji said, “if you don't mind me asking, Jesse, what happened? I mean while I was gone, what really happened between you and my brother?”

“I do mind you askin',” McCree said with a mouthful of mashed up potato. He wasn't sure why he did – if Genji had asked him about Hanzo just a day ago, he would have gushed about every detail, nonstop. Hanzo was smart. Hanzo was handsome. He was a jerk, but McCree wasn't put off by jerks. Reyes had been the absolute _king_ of the jerks - a play on his surname that McCree had made variations of to his face from the moment they had first met - and McCree would have died for him up until the very end. Every scoff, every scowl Hanzo made was enough to drive McCree wild. He was unpredictable, but that just kept McCree excited, always on his toes. When Hanzo showed flashes of kindness between all his cruelty, it was like the greatest reward the world could offer. But somehow, now, with the possibility that Hanzo was _gone,_ McCree didn't feel much like talking about all of that. It was easier to forget their days together if no one else knew about it. He could pretend it had all been in his head. There was no proof that Hanzo and McCree had ever even spent those days together, beyond the innocent lunches that Genji had requested of them.

Except there fucking _was._ Out there, on that beach, the lock with their names on it would be rusting for eternity. And the key was gone, so he couldn't even go back and try to remove the evidence. He couldn't just pretend nothing had happened. The most wonderful, significant thing possible had happened to him.

Fingers trembling, McCree unwrapped the burger in his lap and stared at the hardened bits of cheese sticking to the paper. He took a deep breath. “I think I'm falling in love with him, Genji,” he said, “Or, rather, I think I _did_ fall in love with him. I don't know how to talk about what happened, cuz I don't really get it myself. That first night, when you left me at the station, I ran into him. He was followin' you. We went out and got drunk. I mean just... _shitfaced_. He took me to a dang cat cafe, for god's sake. We didn't do anything, if that's what you're thinkin'. Not while we were drunk. But ever since then, we've been together. Like, he's been sleepin' here with me, and every mornin' we woke up and he took me somewhere new. We went to a bathhouse, and a fish market, and some place called Enoshima, and - ”

“Enoshima?” Genji interrupted him. His brows were raised so high that they disappeared up into the rim of his helmet.

“Yeah? Am I sayin' it wrong?”

“No,” Genji said, and his brows dropped, his eyes crinkled in a mouthless smile, “It is just interesting. Enoshima is a place for couples. That is what it is known for.”

McCree's face burned, and he distracted himself by taking a massive bite of his cheeseburger, wasting time to chew it thoroughly. Genji and Zenyatta both watched him, clearly interested in hearing more of the story. Their stares were intense. He swallowed, nearly choking, and coughed to clear his throat. “Look, I ain't got much else to tell you. Just... we were happy. At least, I was. I reckon he mighta been, too.”

“I want happiness for Hanzo,” Genji said, “I am so sorry for how things unfolded.” He bowed his head, unable to meet McCree's eyes. McCree felt bad for him. The poor guy was beating himself up bad over everything, but McCree didn't think he had a whole lot to do with Hanzo's anger. The lying was the issue, not the fact that Genji went to get Zenyatta. Although he was sure that would have made Hanzo mad, too. But probably not quite as mad, if they had just told the truth about it from the beginning. 

“Naw,” McCree sighed, shaking his head, “Don't be. You were just tryin' to help. He was madder at me than at you, anyway. I shouldn't've lied.”

“I told you to lie to him,” Genji insisted.

“But I was - ”

“Guilt is irrelevant,” Zenyatta said, startling them both into silence, “As long as you understand the mistakes that were made, there is no need to discuss which of you made the greater one.”

Both men nodded in agreement, even though the advice did nothing to improve their moods. McCree, finishing his food, crumbled the paper into a ball and tossed it. It sailed beneath Genji's chair, falling directly into the trashcan. 

“What _should_ be discussed,” Zenyatta continued, “Is what you wish to do moving forward. The past and present cannot be altered, but the future still can.”

“Of course, Master,” Genji agreed.

“Well, I know what I wana do,” McCree said, “Find him, o'course. Apologize. I can't leave here til he's heard me out.”

“I tried to follow him out of the hotel when he left,” Genji admitted, “but he seemed to know that I would try, so he got in a taxi. Unfortunately, I am not quick enough to follow a car on the highway. There is no way we will be able to find him if he wishes to stay hidden. Do you realize how many millions of people live in this city, Jesse?”

“That's never stopped us before,” McCree argued, “This is the kinda shit we used to do, Genji! Blackwatch, remember! There's gotta be some way to track him, somewhere we can stakeout.”

Genji just sighed and shook his head. “When we went on missions with Blackwatch, we were given entire dossiers on our targets. We were told where to go and when to go there. We have nothing on Hanzo.”

“That ain't true!” McCree said, “You're his brother! You know him better'n anyone in the world! There's gotta be somethin' useful you know. Names of his friends. Places he likes to go. The dang barbershop he goes to. Anythin'! Don't you remember the missions we'd go on, where we'd just sit at a restaurant every night for days hopin' the bad guy would show up? This ain't so different! I know you can figure out somethin'!”

In his excitement, he had jumped off the bed and was standing, looming over Genji and Zenyatta both. This was his final ray of hope. He knew there was no way he'd be able to lay around the hotel room just hoping Hanzo might return, not without losing his mind. And he would _never_ return to Gibraltar without some closure. If he went back, then he would have spent the rest of his life wondering if Hanzo had returned to his hotel room only to find him gone. He'd go insane just imagining Hanzo showing up hours after he'd left for the airport, knocking on the door only to find some Japanese man just turning in for the night after traveling for a business trip. No. If McCree left now, Hanzo would never know how much he had meant to him.

“Jesse, calm down,” Genji said, “I am sorry, but for ten years, my brother and I have not spoken; he thought that I was _dead_. I know _nothing_ about him. For all I know, he no longer lives in Japan. Places he goes? Ha! I do not even know what his favorite color is. Even before our fight, we were never close.”

McCree dropped back down onto the bed, burying his face in his hands. Reyes, Morrison, Amari... any of them would have known what to do. He strained his whole mind, trying to hear one of their voices. Always, in the most inconvenient moments, he could hear their ghosts in his head. But at that moment, the voice he latched onto was not a particularly helpful one.

_I'm here, Jesse,_ Hanzo said. But those were not words from his imagination; they were words from his memory. Hanzo had spoken them to him when McCree had panicked, thinking he was leaving. His eyes had been warm and gentle. McCree, caressing his face. Hanzo, leaning into the touch. As long as he lived, he would never forget the sight of Hanzo smiling into his metal palm.

“Blue,” McCree muttered.

“What?”

“Blue,” McCree repeated, “His favorite color's blue.”

“He told you this?” Genji asked. He turned to glance at Zenyatta, and McCree had the distinct impression that some kind of exchange was shared between them. Some kind of expression or gesture he could not pick up on. “Truthfully, Jesse, it sounds to me as if you know my brother better than I do. If anyone can guide us to Hanzo, it would be you.”

“I mean, he mentioned a hundred places and things to me, but none of 'em are places I'd expect him to go now on his own,” McCree said, “there's gotta be somewhere that you know he _has_ to eventually go back to? Like, oh, I dunno, some archery dojo he trains at, or... shucks, I dunno.”

Genji nodded, “I remember the kyudojo where Hanzo and I studied archery as children, but I very much doubt that Hanzo would be welcomed there anymore, after what happened to the Shimada Clan. Everyone associated with the Shimada family always used the same dojos, the same teahouses, the same tattoo artist – ah... wait a moment...”

“Hm? You thought o' somethin'?”

Genji rose to his feet and started towards the door.

“What is it?”

“I may have an idea. But I need to make a phone call first. Please, don't get your hopes up too high. Many years have passed, and it's possible my idea could lead to a dead end.”

“Ain't you gona tell me what it is?”

Both Zenyatta and McCree rose to follow Genji out into the hallway. He was wide-eyed with excitement. “Not yet, no. Let me do some research first. Come, Master. McCree, get some rest and clean yourself up. I will call you as soon as I know something.”

“Dang it, Genji, can't you tell me?”

“Just let me research this. I promise you will know in a few hours. In the meantime, keep trying to contact Hanzo, okay?”

McCree watched Zenyatta and Genji turn for the elevators. Once they had disappeared around the corner, he backed into his room and shut the door, leaning with his back against it and trying to make sense of the conversation. What had he said, or what had Genji said, that had sparked some sort of idea? Was it the archery dojo thing? And what had Genji meant - keep trying to contact Hanzo? How? If he could contact Hanzo, this wouldn't be an issue in the first place! It wasn't like he had Hanzo's email address or phone number or anything.

“Holy hell, I do...” he muttered aloud to himself, smacking himself in the face with a palm.

He dove onto his bed, digging through all the clothes and towels and junk on the floor until he found his cell phone. Genji had texted him Hanzo's contact information back when this had all started! He had never even opened the message, since Hanzo had been with him the whole time. There had never been a need for his phone number. But now, if he called, maybe Hanzo would answer! Maybe he could convince Hanzo to come back! How had he been so stupid? This was the most obvious solution of all, and somehow he had wasted the whole day moping around in bed.

The text warned him that the number belonged to a prepaid phone. That put a bit of a damper on his excitement. Hanzo could have turned the phone off, or thrown it away. But really, this was the only opportunity he had. This _had_ to work. He tried to be optimistic about it. Hanzo didn't even know his phone number, since it was a prepaid phone, too. If Hanzo wasn't wanting to speak to him ever again, this could potentially be his best chance, since Hanzo wouldn't recognize the number as McCree's and he wouldn't simply refuse to answer it out of spite.

He read the number in the text about a thousand times, committing it to memory. Then he dialed, slowly, one number at a time. There was a moment, after hitting the call button, where the phone was silent, and he held his breath. He imagined Hanzo's phone – where did he keep it? In his back pocket, perhaps? - all those miles away from him. Or maybe there was only a few blocks separating them. Or perhaps Hanzo was out in the hallway right now, waiting for him to open the door. And he imagined his own phone, somehow in a way he didn't comprehend, sending out signals that would travel the distance between them.

_Answer, Hanzo_ , he begged him, _Please. Just pick up the phone._

Then he heard the ring.

It was incredible how one single sound could bring him such hope. It meant the phone was still activated, and it meant that the phone was not off. Perhaps Hanzo was glancing at the screen right now, studying the number, wondering why it was unfamiliar to him and who could possibly be calling. He imagined Hanzo holding the phone in his hands – he didn't know what kind of phone Hanzo had, so he just pictured a twin of his own – and that led him to imagine holding hands with Hanzo. They had never held hands, had they? No. He was wrong. They had. On that first night together, Hanzo had pulled him through the crowd by his hand, but he was _so fucking drunk_ that he couldn't remember how it had felt.

_Just answer the phone,_ he thought, _I want to hold your hand. I want to remember it this time._

There was another ring. Hanzo _was_ going to answer. McCree somehow felt certain of it. As he sat there, straining to listen for the greeting, he felt tears burning in his eyes. Why was he crying? It was out of relief, he assumed.

The third ring was cut short.

“Hanzo! It's me! Jesse! Please don't hang up!” McCree shouted into the phone, “I just - ”

But he was cut off by some sudden Japanese. At first, he feared it was a person, and maybe he dialed the wrong number, but then he realized it was much worse - a distinctly mechanical voice. His call had been sent to voicemail.

“Damn it, Hanzo!” he shouted, pounding the button to end the call. He wouldn't be shut down so easily. _No_ , he would persevere. He dialed the number a second time, but the call was ended on the first ring. And when he called a third time, he was sent straight to voicemail. Either the phone had been turned off, or his number had been blocked. He hoped it was the former and not the latter.

This time, he stayed on the line, listening to the voicemail directions that he couldn't translate. He didn't need to, though. Leave a message, yeah, whatever. He knew the drill. His stomach was doing flips in his gut as he listened for the tone.

_Beep._

“H-Hey. Hanzo. It's me. Jesse. Shit, obviously it's Jesse, who the hell else would be callin' you like this? Please, listen to the end. I know you don't owe me anythin', but just... don't hang up. That's all I ask. Uh...”

What could he say? That he was going to dream about Hanzo manhandling him in bed until the day he died? That nothing turned him on more than pulling Hanzo's hair? That Hanzo's eyes were the darkest, loveliest and most mysterious depths he had ever looked into? There was an infinite number of things he wanted to tell Hanzo, but he only had a minute or two to do this, so he had to filter himself. But when he started back up again, he was fighting tears, and the words just wouldn't come out right.

“Listen, I... I fucked up. Bad. But it's not what you're thinkin'. Yeah, I - I lied about where Genji was, but _everythin' else_ was the truth. I swear I wasn't just tryin' t'get you to come back with us. I didn't really think about Genji a single damn time while we were together. All I thought about was you. Every thought I had these past few days started'n ended with you. N' yeah, I think... I think Genji's plan with this Omnic guy was weirder'n hell, but this Zenyatta worked wonders on him, and I know he had good intentions. We both love you a lot. Y-yeah. I – I love you. I can't let you go, Hanzo. My whole life I was just... I was _missin_ ' somethin'. The Deadlock Gang. Overwatch. I was always tryin' to find somewhere I felt _home_. Y'know, somewhere safe, where you're happy, where you're connected to people. I thought Overwatch might be home for me, but I was wrong. I never knew what home felt like until I slept next to you. Shit. I'm cryin'. I dunno what to say. Eloquence is the quality I lack most, ain't that what you said? Ha. Just. Call me back. You can be mad. You don't have to see me. But just call me back and let me know you're safe and let me know how I can start tryin' to make it up to you. Please. Call me back. _Please_. Bye. I love you.”

 


	9. Irezumi

**im out looking for u. fyi. in case u went back to the hotel and couldnt find me**

McCree hit the send button and stared out the window, watching the city flash by. Somewhere out there was Hanzo. It was stupid, he knew, but he searched the crowds on the platforms at every station they stopped at, hoping to see that scruffy, scowling face. It would have been easy – his topknot, his facial hair, his cheekbones, his tattoo and piercing. He was so unlike everyone else. And McCree realized, with a sharp sadness, that he had always wanted to touch the stud in his nose and ask him about it, maybe even kiss it, but he never had. So many things he wanted to do, and could have done, if only Hanzo hadn't stormed off. In order to keep his sorrow at bay, he tried to cling to bitterness. Surely Hanzo _understood_ what had happened. Hanzo was being totally unreasonable! This wasn't his fault or Genji's. It was all a misunderstanding! Why couldn't Hanzo get over himself?

But when he voiced those opinions aloud to Genji as they had walked to the station that afternoon, Genji had shaken his head. Like the first day coming through the airport, he was dressed in baggy clothing again, to hide his cyborg limbs, and he wore another surgical mask to cover the lower half of his face. “My brother's confidence is not something he has ever given to others carelessly. We should have rewarded him for trusting us, but instead we have made him more wary. I should have known...”

“ _Genji_ ,” Zenyatta had said, his tone gentle but chiding, and Genji had fallen silent, putting an end to the conversation and leaving McCree feeling even worse than before.

They got off at Ikebukuro Station, which McCree remembered that Genji had said was the red light district. No matter how hard he tried, McCree never could have pronounced that word. The station seemed just as big and busy as Shinjuku or Shibuya had been, and Genji led them through a maze of corridors packed with shops and restaurants. Outside on the street, it didn't look like any seedy part of town that McCree had ever been through before. There were too many people to feel unsafe, none of whom looked any more dicey than the average passerby, and they passed lively arcades full of teenagers, massive malls looming on every block, feminine-themed cafes, bowling alleys, movie theaters... far too many interesting sights for McCree to be able to take in. As loud and out of control as Shinjuku felt at night, Ikebukuro almost seemed to match it even though it was broad daylight.

Genji led the way, so Zenyatta fell back to meet McCree's pace. He had borrowed some of Genji's street clothes to also blend in a little more and was actually walking instead of floating, which all helped to put McCree a little more at ease around him. “Have you enjoyed Japan?” Zenyatta asked.

 _You mean aside from this whole horrible fuckin' disaster?_ McCree wanted to snap back at him. But he held his tongue. “It's weird. Unique.”

Zenyatta gave a soft laugh. “Yes. It certainly is. I find it at times to be overwhelming.”

McCree took this opportunity to look at Zenyatta good and hard for the first time. He knew that this omnic was responsible somehow for Genji's salvation, but he couldn't find anything remarkable about him. If he had stripped all his clothes off and stood in a lineup with other omnics, McCree wouldn't have been able to pick him out. And yet Genji always looked up at him with absolute adoration, like the world revolved around Zenyatta's words. McCree was happy that Genji had found peace, but he just didn't understand. What was this omnic capable of, that Genji had thought he could help Hanzo?

As they turned down a narrow side road, Genji grew excited. “There used to be a Nepalese restaurant down this way!” he said, “I wonder if it is still open? They served delicious naan. The owner was a kind man who spoke very little Japanese. He would be thrilled to see me fluent in Nepali!”

Genji's good mood at being back in his old stomping grounds only made McCree more irritable, but he didn't have time to linger on it, because they took another turn and wound up in front of the oddest building that McCree had ever seen. It was several stories tall, and painted white with black zebra stripes. Even in the daylight, it flashed gaudy neon. The arrangement of lights on the structure made no sense. Half pinball machine, half Christmas decoration, no balance or functionality.

“What the hell?” McCree muttered, stunned.

“That is a love hotel,” Genji told them. McCree realized then that they were truly on a totally different side of town than what he had gotten used to. He felt that it looked more like campy amusement park backdrops than a setting for debauchery, but he had come to accept that he'd never understand Japan's quirks.

Down the block from the hotel, they took a set of stairs that led them below street level. The door they entered had heavily tinted windows and no signs to give McCree a clue as to where they were going. Inside was a dingy lobby. There was a reception desk stacked with paperwork, an overflowing ash tray and electric fan taking up most of its surface. A single sofa sat against the opposite wall, its fabric holey and frayed, where a bob-tailed cat was curled up and watching them intently. All around them, the walls were covered in sketches, some of them framed, others held up with a tack and fluttering in the breeze from the fan.

A woman spoke.

McCree, who had been focused on the drawings all over the walls, nearly jumped out of his skin. Somehow, he had totally overlooked the young woman seated at the reception desk, who was standing now, coming around to greet them with a bow. She and Genji began an exchange that McCree, of course, could not understand.

Zenyatta, however, apparently could. “She says they do not accept walk-ins,” he translated for McCree, “Genji is explaining that we are not here for tattoos, but to speak to the artist.”

So this was some kind of tattoo parlor? It didn't look like any of the ones McCree had seen back home. For one, none of these sketches were of skulls or big-breasted naked women. They were of flowers, or fish, or birds. And he noticed that many of them were of dragons. He appreciated the quality of the work, but he didn't understand how this could help them find Hanzo. McCree felt helpless there, like he shouldn't have even been invited to come along. What good could he do, when he couldn't even understand what was being said? He stepped away from the conversation, pacing the tiny room to study the art on the walls. The line work was so exquisite, each stroke of the pencil almost like calligraphy. A tiger, set upon a background of storm clouds, through which poked tall stalks of bamboo. A woman with delicate features, her kimono sliding off a pale shoulder to expose the curve of her breast. Lotus flowers floating on top of a black pond. A red-faced demon wielding a golden staff. And then he spotted one framed piece that made his jaw drop. The shapes of a swirling storm, bands of lightning, and a dragon, its maw agape with fury. There were differences, of course, but he would recognize this anywhere. It was a sketch made in pencil of Hanzo's tattoo.

So hypnotized was McCree by the sketch, that he was oblivious to the volume of the exchange behind him. However, it had increased in intensity to the point that a man had emerged from the back room, shouting at Genji with his fist raised. He was in his 60s at least, and very slender, although not in a way that made him look frail at all. His arms and hands were covered in tattoos, as was what was visible of his neck. The appearance of this stranger drew McCree's attention back to the conversation. He watched, wishing he could understand anything, when suddenly the man's face drained of anger. His mouth hung opened, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Genji-kun?”

He took Genji's flesh hand in both of his own, wringing his fingers between his palms.

The woman who had been at the front desk looked just as confused as McCree felt.

“He knew Genji when Genji was young,” Zenyatta explained, “He says that he thought Genji had been killed. He is brokenhearted that he never had the opportunity to do Genji's tattoo. It would have been complimentary to Hanzo's.”

McCree pointed to the drawing on the wall. “You did Hanzo's tattoo, didn't you? Genji, is that why you brought us here? This is Hanzo's tattoo!”

“This man is one of the most respected tattoo artists in the country,” Genji explained, “He worked on all of the Shimada Clan. Including my father, and including Hanzo.”

“So you think he might know where Hanzo is?” McCree asked.

Genji shook his head, “That's very unlikely. However, I thought there might be a chance, a _very slight_ one, that Hanzo may still come here occasionally for touch-ups. He used to get touch-ups every six months, as did my father. Please don't get your hopes up, Jesse. I know you're getting excited, but there is a good chance that Hanzo no longer cares for his tattoo, or if he does, the appointment could be months from now.”

McCree couldn't heed Genji's advice, though. He _was_ excited. He could wait six months to see Hanzo again, if he had to. It wasn't ideal, but it was a hell of a lot better than just never seeing him again at all. “You're a genius, Genji!” he laughed, slapping Genji on the back.

The tattoo artist eyed McCree with suspicion. McCree stared back, unable to match the intensity in his eyes, so instead he focused on studying the details of his tattoos. On his left arm were several demonic-looking masks. On the other was a woman riding on the back of a fierce dragon. The man turned again to Genji very slowly, almost unwilling to turn his back to McCree, as if expecting McCree to pounce on him like a wild animal. The conversation picked up once more, and McCree was left out again.

“Genji has let him know that we are looking for Hanzo. He asked if Hanzo has an appointment to come in,” Zenyatta again translated for him, “But for his client's confidentiality, he does not take their names when accepting appointments. I imagine he thinks it could be used as evidence by he police. Instead, he writes down the tattoo that is being worked on – a description of it or a title that he has given the piece. Genji has requested to see his appointment book, to look for what might be Hanzo, but the man refuses. That information, he says, is private.”

Genji threw himself to his knees so suddenly that McCree leaped backwards, half-expecting that they were being attacked. But Genji was fine. He doubled over, his palms and forehead flattened against the tiles; he was bowing at the man's feet, speaking without even raising his eyes from the filthy floor. McCree wished desperately for any kind of comprehension. The old man was grabbing Genji by the forearms, trying to pull him up out of the bow.

In that moment, McCree found his eyes drawn to the man's right arm again. He noticed for the first time that the dark blue background of the tattoo was a swirling, turbulent representation of the sea. The woman was riding the dragon across the waves. McCree didn't know much about traditional Japanese culture, but she was wearing some ornate robes, inked with precise, delicate details. In her arms, she carried a musical instrument, some sort of lute. He couldn't name it, but there was something familiar about its shape, and something familiar about the piece as a whole.

“Hey!” he shouted, “I'll be damned!”

The commotion around him stilled. All faces turned up towards him. Genji and the receptionist seemed confused, but the tattoo artist seemed angered that McCree, a foreigner, was yelling and swearing in his shop. His eyes were particularly fierce. But McCree wasn't bothered. In fact, he was smiling for the first time all day.

“Benzaiten!” he said, pointing at the man's tattoo.

The man glanced down at his arm, running the fingertips of his opposite hand over the dragon's scaly back. Aside from the combined quiet whirring of Genji's and Zenyatta's machinery, the room was silent. McCree's smile faltered. Had he interrupted an important part of the conversation? Had his big mouth messed up this single chance?

“We went there... to Enoshima... me 'n Hanzo...” he muttered, scratching the back of his neck.

Genji straightened upright, beginning to speak, presumably to translate McCree's words, but the tattoo artist stopped him with one raised hand. He moved towards the desk, raising a large, leather-bound book from beneath the piles of paper. His wrinkled, miserable old face suddenly brightened as he passed the book to McCree. McCree took the book in both hands, bewildered, looking from Genji to Zenyatta in hopes of a translation for this silent exchange. The man put his hands on McCree's cheeks, pulling his face down closer. Then he spoke, in a slow, unsteady English: “I... hear... the dragon. I hear Benzaiten. Together, they say you are a good man. They say... I need to help you. Her spirit is vast in you.” He extended an arthritic, tobacco-stained finger and pressed it to McCree's chest. He stared dumbfounded down at the old man, struck speechless by how weird and surprising this had been.

Genji gave the man a full face-to-the-floor bow once more, and McCree realized he should probably say something. “Er. Thank you. I definitely ain't like the goddess, but whatever you say, I reckon. Thank you.” He bowed his head a little, figuring it was respectful, but in return, the man bowed back to him, much lower, nearly bending at the waist.

McCree opened the book to a page at random, finding rows and rows of complicated characters that he stood no chance of reading. His jaw dropped. “Uh. Genji. Mind givin' me a hand with this?”

Genji rose to his feet and took the book from McCree's hands, laying it out across the desk. He began to flip through the pages. “Ah, yes. Here we go. This is the current month.” He trailed a fingertip down the columns of characters, muttering softly to himself as he did so. Once he had read each column, he turned the page and started again. McCree hovered behind him, wishing he could help but knowing there was no way.

The tattoo artist watched over Genji's shoulder, but he gave some instructions to the woman, who disappeared in the back. Several silent moments passed, and McCree felt his heart slamming against his ribcage. He was vaguely aware that with every flipped page, they were reaching farther and farther into the future. His hopes of finding Hanzo sooner rather than later were being crushed. When the woman returned a while later, she was carrying a tray of steaming bowls of tea. She handed one to Genji, but he ignored it, engrossed in his work. Then she stood before Zenyatta, unable to look up at his face, seemingly torn between offering him one or not. Would he think her an idiot if she did? Would he find her rude if she did not? To her immense relief, Zenyatta smiled and declined before she was forced to ask him. When she finally passed McCree his bowl of tea, he took it with a nod and flopped back into the sofa beside the cat, running fingers through its fur while he waited for his drink to cool. This moment was pure torture. He wished he could have taken half of the book and helped or something, anything. But instead, all he could do was sit there and watch Genji do all the work.

“None of the appointments made in this book so far sound like Hanzo,” Genji finally said. He turned, offering McCree an apologetic smile before the disappointment settled in his features. “I am sorry. I thought this idea was far-fetched, Jesse.”

Of course. McCree should have known better than to get excited. He sighed and rubbed at his beard. "You sure?"

“Even without names, his descriptions for the appointments are quite clear,” Genji explained, “Here it says someone is coming in to have the lineart finished on a koi pond scene on their lower right leg. This person is coming in to have the color touched up on a piece done on their back, of a samurai on horseback. See? It would be easy to find Hanzo in the list. There are no descriptions of a client with a completed dragon tattoo on their arm.”

McCree nodded, staring down at his boots. “Well, it was a good shot, Genji. You tried. We'll just have to regroup and think of – wait a second. Genji? Did you say someone had a tattoo on their back of some samurai on horseback?” He jumped to his feet and crossed the room, staring down at the nonsense written on the schedule as though his enthusiasm might suddenly translate it for him. “Where does it say that?”

Genji tapped the page. “August 31st. 4 o'clock PM. These characters say 'Touch-up. Full back. Maeda Keiji and Matsukaze.' Maeda Keiji is a popular samurai. Matsukaze was the name of his horse.”

McCree took the book from Genji's hands and rubbed his fingers over the words as though they were braille. “Genji. Genji. I think I have an idea.”

“Really?”

“Hanzo had mentioned he was huntin' some fella' Jinzaburo.”

“Oh! Maeda Keiji and Matsukaze... yes!” Genji said, suddenly picking up on his train of thought, “This is almost certainly his appointment. This describes his tattoo. But how did you know that?”

“Hanzo told me! Hanzo wanted me'n you to help him track this guy down. Apparently he's been usin' the Shimada name, harrassin' people in Hanamura and stuff. Genji, I think, honestly, if we found this guy and stopped him, Hanzo'd know that we have his best intentions at heart. He'd know we feel like his need for revenge is important. I really, really think if we did this for him in some big public way, where he heard about it on TV or in the news or somethin', he'd come back to us.”

McCree's hope was back, and in a big way. Before, there had always been a sense of dread that even if they tracked Hanzo down or if Hanzo had answered the phone, there was no guarantee Hanzo would ever stop being angry with them both. However, this plan solved that problem. If Hanzo heard that McCree had caught this guy for him, even if he never found McCree again, at least Hanzo would _never_ be able to doubt that McCree had understood and respected him. And when McCree thought about it, that wouldn't be so bad. If Hanzo chose to never speak to him again after this, then at least McCree would know that Hanzo _really_ knew how much he loved him.

“Jesse, we cannot be playing vigilante and putting Overwatch in jeopardy,” Genji said, although from his tone McCree could tell that he was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince McCree, “Besides, how would we track this man down?”

“It's right in here. We know he'll be here at this time on this day! We just keep an eye on the place and tail him!”

“Jesse, his appointment is more than three months away,” Genji said.

“It don't matter! I'll stay in Japan til then! I won't stop looking for Hanzo for a single second. I don't care if I spend every last dollar to my name stayin' in our damn hotel. Hell, if I gotta live on the streets, I'll do it. It won't be the first time in my life,” McCree said, “You know just as well as I do that Hanzo's goin' down a bad path. If you care about him at all, which I know you do, then you know this is the only way we can save him. What happens to him after he tracks all these men down? You think he won't just off himself knowin' his job's done? It's our responsibility as the folks who care 'bout him to stop him from throwin' his whole damn life away. That was the whole reason you came out here, wasn't it?”

Genji nodded.

McCree was breathing hard, filled with adrenaline. He wanted to leave the shop immediately and just throw himself wholeheartedly into the search. Now that he had a date, a target, a plan, there didn't feel like anything could keep him away from Hanzo. But before he could say or do anything further, the tattoo artist took the book from his hands. He wore a wry smile as he left, slipping into the back rooms of the shop.

“What's he doin'?” McCree asked, but no one knew.

Feeling antsy, he dug his phone from his pocket. Of course there were no missed calls, no new messages. But he opened the one-sided conversation with Hanzo's phone number and typed frantically.

**i wont give up on us. just wait and see.**

He knew it was meaningless to be typing anything, that even if Hanzo read it, he would still never respond. But it made him feel better. He could convince himself that Hanzo was seeing these texts and that this was one final, frail line of communication between them that had not been severed. Even if Hanzo never returned to him, he could tell himself that Hanzo had read his words.

Everyone sipped their tea in silence, until again, the tattoo artist popped out from around the corner. He was smiling, and he approached McCree, taking his large tanned hands into his own. It seemed that he could not articulate what he wanted in English, so he glanced at Zenyatta over McCree's shoulder, and instead spoke to him. In reaction to his words, Genji was bowing once more, and when Zenyatta translated for him, McCree could tell from his tone that the news was good. (When had McCree begun reading emotion into the omnic's voice?)

“He has canceled Jinzaburo's appointment in August. Unfortunately, a sudden emergency came up, and he will be out of the city for the weekend. As apologies for the inconvenience, he made an opening in his schedule for tomorrow at noon.”

 

* * *

 

McCree's mood had lifted now that they had a plan, so when Genji suggested they explore the area, he actually agreed. He had been shut up in his hotel room with nothing to do but stare at the television for more than twenty-four hours, so it felt good to stretch his legs and get fresh air, even if it was humid. They went at Genji's suggestion to the Nepalese restaurant they had passed. It was not an impressive place, based on the fact that it was cramped in an alley behind a love hotel with a whole block full of stores and bars that looked similarly rundown. Inside, it was narrow with poor lighting and almost no decor. At one of the wooden tables, the staff sat around smoking and playing cards, watching a soccer game on the television in the corner. The owner was a handsome middle-aged Nepalese man who shot up from his seat to greet them. Despite what Genji had said so enthusiastically earlier, he did not tell the owner who he was and made no effort to speak in his language. In fact, he hovered back with McCree, allowing Zenyatta to step forward and communicate with the staff. They were led down a flight of stairs into a dingy basement where more tables were set up, although one corner had been cleared of furniture to make room for a bucket that captured water leaking from a dark, wet stain in the ceiling. 

While they settled down into their seats, McCree felt suddenly awkward. Awkward about the condition of the restaurant. Awkward about how quiet Genji had been since leaving the tattoo parlor. But mostly, he felt awkward about the fact that they were at a restaurant - he knew Zenyatta could not eat, and while he was fairly certain that Genji still did, he had never seen Genji eat in front of anyone else. Were the other two about to sit there and watch him order food? He shifted in his chair, busying himself with the menu so that he didn't have to meet their eyes.

However, moments later when an older woman in an apron appeared to take their order, Genji was actually the first one to speak up. 

"Uh, I'll have the same as him..." McCree said, partially because he was so surprised that Genji was ordering anything at all, but mostly because - while the menu did have English - the translations were so poor that he could hardly make sense of them. 

Once she had headed back up the stairs to put the order in at the kitchen, leaving them alone, Genji cleared his throat. "About tomorrow..." 

"Oh, yeah!" This was exactly what McCree wanted to discuss. He sat up a little straighter in his chair. 

"Please do not make the same mistakes as Reyes." 

"Uh. What." The words left McCree feeling vulnerable and exposed, as if he was sitting there naked under their judgmental gazes. But after the initial shock, he was just  _mad._ He fought the urge to jump to his feet and flip the table.

When he opened his mouth to protest, Genji spoke up over him: "Remember our goal, Jesse. We need Jinzaburo to be captured by the police so that Hanzo can learn about it. That means that we cannot kill him, and we cannot make our presence known until he does something truly illegal. And we  _absolutely_ cannot let him know that we followed him from the tattoo shop, or we will ruin its reputation."

"Do you think I'm fuckin' stupid?" McCree snarled. 

"No. And neither was Reyes. But you are emotional, as was he. I know that you want this over with quickly, but we must focus on doing things  _correctly,_ not quickly."

There was a tense moment of silence, McCree chewing on a mouthful of hateful words that he was just dying to spit out, but they were interrupted by the waitress, who had returned with two glasses of water. As he clutched the glass in his fist, the cold condensation seemed to ground him a little. Genji was right, he knew. At first sign of the bastard, McCree's instinct would be to shoot him in the teeth, but he didn't have his gun, and he would accomplish no justice if the man just died at his hand. Acknowledging that frightened him. It was the solution that Reyes preferred - just kill anything that stood in your way, regardless of the repercussions. As much as he respected his former commander, the thought of following his path was horrifying. "I know what we gotta do, Genji," he muttered, "This ain't my first rodeo. I've been doin' this kinda shit longer than you have."

The tension between them was palpable, so Zenyatta spoke up in hopes to dissipate it. "Do either of you have a plan for tomorrow? It is unwise to go in unprepared."

McCree nodded his agreement, but before he could start brainstorming, Genji answered. "I believe that tomorrow should be left solely to Zenyatta and I."

" _What?_ You're fuckin' kiddin' me!" McCree shouted, slamming his glass down on the table and sloshing water across the wooden surface, "You expect me to just sit around and do nothin' while you and Zenyatta run around playin' Blackwatch together? That makes no God damned sense and you know it, Genji. I don't know what you think I'm fixin' to fuck up, but I assure you, findin' this guy is just as important to me as it is to you! If not more important!"

"I realize it is important to you, Jesse," Genji said, and his calm tones just enraged McCree further, "But we not on a Blackwatch mission. We are in Japan. You likely have fifteen centimeters on the average man here. There is no way for you to blend into the crowd. It is much easier for Zenyatta and I to go unnoticed, and tailing this target without making him suspicious of the tattoo artist is my priority. Once we have followed him, once we know where he goes, then we can form a plan together that involves you. But tomorrow, you cannot help, and you know that Commander Reyes would agree with me."

"So what?" McCree asked, shooting a venomous look from Genji to Zenyatta and back again, as if daring Zenyatta to challenge him as well, "You expect me to sit around the hotel jackin' off or somethin' while you guys do all the work?"

"This is not all of the work. This is just the first step in a series of work. If you truly wish to help Hanzo and not just take out your own anger, then you would understand."

But before the argument could escalate further, there was the waitress again, a silver tray full of food in each hand. McCree didn't even know what he had ordered. Rice, a small leafy salad, huge pieces of naan, and a sloppy mess of sauce-drenched chicken. He poked at his food with a chopstick, seething, while they watched her disappear back up the stairs. However, he was not able to pick back up the conversation, because when he finally looked again at Genji, he was struck silent with shock. Genji was pulling his mask off, and he set it carefully at the end of the table. For the first time since he had met Genji, the man's entire face was revealed. The whole bottom of his jaw was just a metal extension of his cyborg parts. The bottom half of his face that remained was all knots of taut scar tissue and gnarled old burns. McCree gawked at him as he raised his hands, clapping them together in front of his face in an unsettling, childish gesture. 

" _Itadakimasu!_ " Genji said, and, finally breaking eye contact with McCree, he reached for his chopsticks. 


	10. Pain

Four nights later, every text that McCree wrote failed to send and every phone call ended with an error message spoken in pleasant Japanese. He didn't have to translate the words to understand them – everything was over. If McCree hadn't been waiting on news from Genji and Zenyatta, he would have just thrown the whole damn thing away. Tossed it onto some train tracks, flushed it down the high-tech toilet, stomped on the thing until it was in a million pieces on the street. Anything to avoid the temptation to keep writing those texts and dialing that number.

“I hate you,” McCree had muttered up at the ceiling of his room that evening. He hated that Hanzo could make him feel so low. He hated that he wasted his days checking his notifications, only to find them as empty as always each time. He hated that Hanzo was out there not even thinking about him, while he was stuck in this heart-broken hell. When he thought about Hanzo, all he could picture was the scowl he wore on his face, the cold way he turned his back to him in bed, and all the ways that Hanzo had been cruel to him. The man was filled with so much contempt for the world and for McCree as well; what had he ever saw in Hanzo to begin with?

But as soon as he had spoke the words aloud, he was ashamed. “I'm sorry,” he had whispered, as though Hanzo could hear him, “I'm so sorry. Please forgive me, Hanzo. I don't hate you at all.”

Perhaps if he wasn't left alone constantly, his thoughts would not have been so melancholy. Ever since the day at the tattoo parlor, McCree had not seen Genji or Zenyatta once. Genji had followed their target from his appointment with the tattoo artist to a high-rise near a part of Tokyo called Asakusa, where presumably he lived, and he and Zenyatta had taken turns watching the building and following him wherever he went. The man spent the majority of his time at night clubs and pachinko parlors, where he did nothing illegal, as far as they had been able to tell without actually following him inside those buildings. And so McCree suffered by himself, waiting for them to call him to help with this task. At first, feeling helpless and left out had made him bitterly angry and filled him with nervous energy, but after a while, he could not take it any longer and decided to take action on his own. He had asked Genji and Zenyatta to check out of Genji's hotel room and instead move into his, in case Hanzo returned. Meanwhile, he had packed his bags and moved into a traditional inn (Genji had called it a _ryokan_ ) in Hanamura, since Hanzo had predicted the action would occur there.

The _ryokan_ was a very old building behind the shrine, down a tiny alley filled with vending machines and recycling bins. It was owned by an elderly woman, who cooked a feast for the guests every night, and her handsome, well-dressed grandson. McCree couldn't communicate with them at all, but he imagined the business had been in their family for generations, just based on their visible pride. The property was small, with only a handful of tatami-floored rooms behind sliding doors and paper-thin walls. Everything there besides the guest rooms was communal - a courtyard with a picturesque garden and koi pond, the washroom with its steaming bath, a dining room where meals were served family-style, even a recreation room with a television and single couch. McCree didn't feel like sharing the space with a bunch of strangers, so he kept to his room – a claustrophobic square with nothing but a futon on the floor and a low table with an electric kettle plugged into the single outlet. Late at nights, he would open the door out into the courtyard and smoke cigars, or sneak in to use the bath while the other guests slept. He didn't want to get to know these people or to explain himself to them. If the place was full of Japanese people, maybe he would have let his guard down, but a friendly couple with a room across from him were from New Zealand and found his southern drawl quaint and adorable, so they were nosy about everything whenever he bumped into them in the narrow halls. He didn't have the heart or the energy to make up any cover stories for himself. It was easier to avoid everyone entirely. During the majority of the day, he would sleep on his futon, letting the daily life at the _ryokan_ occur without him. In the evenings, he would wake up and do his own reconnaissance work.

Genji had told him that the reason he couldn't help was because he couldn't blend in, so McCree had spent all this time making himself a familiar sight in Hanamura. He made sure that everyone saw him, to the point that no one gave him a second glance. They _expected_ him to show his face. There was a gift shop down the block from his _ryokan_ , which he popped into every day just before it closed; he never bought anything, but he snooped through the post cards and keychains until the cashier got used to his presence. A teahouse next to his _ryokan_ brewed _maccha_ as bitter and strong as coffee, and he would come by occasionally to pay for a cup so tiny it looked like it was from a child's teaparty set in his hands. He sampled every restaurant, although Rikimaru Ramen was the place he returned to most frequently. Animetropolis, a store selling nothing but anime merchandise, became one of his favorite places to people-watch; he had expected it to be full of children begging their parents to buy them toys, but instead it was frequented by adult men who purchased action figures of big-breasted, scantily clad women. There was a place that did repairs on old textiles, like silken kimono and tapestries, and the older woman who ran the business would flirt with McCree in Japanese while she showed him samples of her work. He liked these people. This part of Tokyo was somehow a pocket of untouched customs from years ago. It helped distract him from checking his phone.

When everything closed for the night, as they all did quite early, he would wander to the arcade, where he wasted countless amounts of money playing games. He liked working the buttons and levers to win prizes. The staff, teenagers dressed in elaborate costumes of Japanese cartoon characters, would rush forward to congratulate him and offer him plastic bags to dump the winnings into. Before long, he had accumulated souvenirs for everyone back home – keychains, phone charms, tote bags, stuffed animals, stickers, statues, candy, hand towels, coin pouches; the stuff began to fill his suitcase until it could barely be zipped closed. The arcade, with its flashing neon machines and music blaring from all directions, no two songs the same, reminded him of Tokyo at night in miniature. If he closed his eyes, watching the light dance beyond his eyelids, he could perfectly recall that first night with Hanzo, standing in the center of Shibuya Crossing, Hanzo's hands gripping his own while the colors bled into the night all around them.

Just after dawn, before returning to his futon in the inn, he would slip into the shrine before any tourists had arrived. Monks roamed the grounds doing landscaping in the rock garden and praying around the bronze bell. When their prayers were over, a beam was lowered from the ceiling on ropes, which they used to strike the bell. It created a sound that McCree felt through his whole body, starting with his ears but passing all the way through to the soles of his feet. Low, melodious, and pervasive, it rang out loud enough to carry past the shrine, filling the streets with vibrations of its long, heavenly note. McCree quivered at the force of that sound. It was powerful enough to steal his breath, to shake his soul. And of course he thought about the bell on Enoshima, the dragon's bell with its light, pretty sound. _No, that bell's no good_ , he thought. The bell in Hanamura, with its almighty, chilling tone and triumphant volume was more a more appropriate comparison to the way he felt about Hanzo. And in those moments, he seemed to feel Hanzo all around him.

That was how he passed his days: alone, but sensing Hanzo with him everywhere he went, waiting for the phone calls from Genji and Zenyatta.

The night that he finally got thephone call he had been hoping for was no different from all the others. A dinner, which to him was breakfast, at Rikimaru Ramen. Some window-shopping and people-watching until his nightly migration to the arcade. He was playing a game where he shot at zombies with a fake neon-pink pistol. It was a poor replacement for Peacekeeper, aiming with that hunk of plastic was awkward and clumsy, but the violence of undead heads exploding was satisfying. The minutes were passing by like hours, as they usually did. There were no hints that tonight might be different.

But then his phone came to life in his back pocket, and his first ridiculous, foolish thought -

_Hanzo?_

Finally, Hanzo had returned to the hotel to discover him gone. Or maybe he had stopped in to make an appointment with his tattoo artist, who had told him that McCree had paid him a visit and had recognized the goddess on his arm. But maybe he was just lying in his bed, wherever that was, simply lonely and missing McCree's embrace. Except that when McCree fumbled with the phone and glanced down at the screen, the number was Genji's. How many disasters could have been avoided this trip if he had only stopped answering Genji's phonecalls?

“Howdy, Ge - ”

“I lost him!” Genji shouted before McCree could even finish his greeting, “They got into a black SUV. I couldn't follow them on the highway!”

This wasn't the first time they had lost Jinzaburo. On the third night of their mission – as McCree mentally called it – Zenyatta had been on watch duty when a convoy of vehicles had picked their target up and been lost on the same highway. McCree and Genji had both checked every street, every parking lot in Hanamura, but there was no sign of the cars or anything else suspicious, aside from a young man who openly stared at McCree from across the street. He wasn't Japanese, but he was not white either. There was something foreign about him, but McCree couldn't place where he might be from. His gaze was intense, and McCree stared back, daring him to come challenge him. He was about to nudge Genji and ask him if the young man looked familiar, when suddenly he was running at the both of them with his arms waving above his head.

“Eastwood!” the young man shouted, his face lighting up, “I thought it was you!”

It took several seconds for McCree to realize this was the street vendor who had sold him and Hanzo kabobs on that first night. It felt like it had occurred decades ago. “I saw your friend here, just yesterday morning!” the man said.

“My friend? Did he say anythin'? 'Bout me? Do you know where he was goin'?”

“I told him to come buy kabob. He said you had left town! I am very happy to see you, Mr. Eastwood!”

Those words crushed McCree. Had Hanzo read none of his texts? Heard none of his voice mails? Or was Hanzo lying to this stranger, purely to avoid complicated conversation. McCree left the encounter with his hands full of coupons for the kabob stand and a heavy heart. Even if he had been forced to face Jinzaburo that night, he likely would not have been capable of the confrontation. When Zenyatta had called them to say that the man had turned back up at home with a car full of women, McCree was actually relieved. Despite how long he had waited to confront this man, McCree knew he was too weakened.

After tonight's call, he imagined things would happen in a similar way, although hopefully without running into anyone associated with his memories of Hanzo. He stepped away from his game without finishing the round, rushing down the stairs and outside. It was very late, and there were few streetlights on. No vehicles prowled the dark roads, but there were some young people huddled around the sidewalks, laughing and smoking. He passed them, although the smell of their cigarettes had a stunning effect on his anxiety and made him want to pause and take a smoke break himself.

Most people got to Hanamura via its small, outdated train station, so that was the direction he headed in. It only had two lines, and each line had two platforms – one for each direction of tracks – so it would be easy for McCree to plant himself outside the single exit and watch for anyone suspicious. He didn't know who to look for in the crowd, but he remembered that Hanzo had described Jinzaburo as a man with a prominent mole on his face, so McCree figured that would be enough to go on. But as he put the shrine behind him, he remembered what time it was and swore to himself aloud. The train lines all over Tokyo had been shut down for the night. No one, not even the cleverest criminal, would be able to enter Hanamura that way.

That made it harder for McCree to plan his next step. There was no way that he could keep his eye on every street into this part of the city, and that was assuming he came by car. If he was coming on foot, then there were hundreds of ways in. _If he's comin' at all,_ McCree had to remind himself. He knew that the man had left his apartment and that Genji had lost his trail, and that was it. There were still a million other places in this city he might be going. They were putting a lot of faith in Hanzo, right now. Their whole plan revolved around Hanzo's certainty that this man was still operating in Hanamura. If Hanzo had been wrong, then all of this work was for nothing.

His mood now sour, McCree backtracked to the arcade, where he blended in with the crowd. He lit up a cigar, and as he enjoyed the tobacco in his throat, he made a mental list of where someone like Jinzaburo might be headed. Hanzo had told McCree that he was harassing businesses here, and over the past few days, McCree had gotten to know them all. There were only a few that seemed big enough to target, which narrowed McCree's selection down. Many of the stores in this part of the city, such as the gift shop and the anime store, had been closed for hours, and he very much doubted that Jinzaburo could accomplish anything by heading there, unless his goal was theft, but that didn't seem likely to McCree. White-collar, big-time criminals like this guy were more likely to send goons out to do jobs like that. If he was going to show his face somewhere, then it was to do business, meaning the owner had to still be on the property.

His first fear was that this guy might target the _ryokan_ he was staying in. He pictured the owner, who always greeted him with a smile, spoke kindly to him even though he couldn't understand the words. She was hunched over with age, her face still smooth but her hands wrinkled and arthritic. A woman like her would be totally unable to defend herself. Even McCree's fellow guests, as hard as he tried to avoid them, were innocent and incapable of fending off an attack. McCree felt determined to protect them, but he knew that he was jumping to conclusions. There were still other potential businesses for Jinzaburo to hit, ones that made a great deal more money. The arcade itself immediately came to mind, as well as the karaoke place and Rikimaru Ramen.

His phone beeped. A text from Genji -

**Zenyatta just took watch over here. I'm on my way. Don't rush into anything before I get there.**

McCree sighed. Fine, he'd wait. Even if he did figure out where Jinzaburo was going, it wasn't like he could call the police in Japanese without help anyway.

When his cigar was spent, he moved through the group of young people by the doors in order to reach the ash tray, where he snubbed it out and discarded it. They stared at him in a way that made him a little embarrassed to be dressed the way he was; back in the US he fit right in, but in Hanamura, he looked like some kind of street performer. He retreated back to his shadowy corner of the street, and in the darkness he picked dirt out from under his nails and thought about lighting a second cigar.

Interrupting his thoughts, there was an unmistakable sound – a man's scream, abruptly cut short.

The kids across from him began to shout among each other. They looked up at McCree, and even without shared language he could understand they were wondering if he had also heard the sound. He knew the voice had come from up the street, in the direction of the shrine. He put his hand on his hip to reach for his gun, but of course it wasn't there. Suddenly this whole plan seemed idiotic. How could he do anything unarmed? The group seemed on edge. Their eyes darted around the dark streets, and McCree was reminded of a herd of startled deer. As he watched them, a strange smell tickled at his nose, and he couldn't name it at first. The others, though, seemed to have some better idea of what it was than he did, because their shouting intensified, and all of them hurried back inside the arcade. He was alone in the silent streets now. Every muscle in his body was urging him to leap into action, but Genji's text was holding him back.

And then he recognized the smell. It was smoke. Not from a cigar, or even a cigarette, but from a fire.

He couldn't wait for Genji any longer. He took off at a jog, scanning every alley and doorway that he passed. The further he walked from the arcade, the more eerie Hanamura seemed. So trapped in the past, with all of its traditional architecture, there was a distinctly _haunted_ feel to the entire area. In every direction he glanced, he expected to see a pale, ghostly figure of a woman in a bloody kimono. He knew, though, that whatever he was running towards was far worse than some Japanese ghost. The air was heavy with the smoke, even though it was too dark to actually see it, and it had an unusual chemical quality to it that burned in his nostrils and throat. Gradually, he could _hear_ it. A crackling and rustling of flames eating metal. The flames cast a flickering glow on the gate of the shrine, although he still had no idea what was on fire exactly, or why.

 _This is a hell of a lot more than I signed up for,_ he thought.

There was a loud chime that nearly stopped his heart. Some kind of message notification. In these empty streets, it seemed impossibly loud. He reached for his phone, his fingers clumsy as he unlocked the screen. Except he had received nothing... the sound had not been from his own phone. Someone else was nearby.

He flattened himself against the side of the Rikimaru Ramen building and peered around the corner at the end of the street. It was chaos, and it took his eyes several seconds to make sense of what he was seeing. At the farthest end of the road, there was a white van painted with the logo for Rikimaru Ramen, and it was ablaze. McCree's whole view of the scene seemed like a glimpse into hellfire. It was nightmarish. The smoke was thick enough that pulling air into his lungs was a struggle; it felt like he was swallowing tiny shards of glass. Its accompanying heat had beads of perspiration forming beneath McCree's hat. Lying on the road was a man, his body twisted in a shape that filled McCree's gut with dread. He wore an apron that McCree recognized from his nights spent in Hanamura; he was an employee at the ramen shop, if not the owner himself. There was no blood, nor any obvious wounds, so McCree grasped onto the hope that he might be alive but just unconscious. And there, parked between McCree and the fire, was a black SUV. He had to clamp his teeth shut to stop himself from swearing. Of course, anywhere else in the world, it may have been a coincidence, but Japanese citizens seemed to prefer tiny cars, and this was by far the largest, most ostentatious and Western-looking thing on this traditional stretch of road. All of its doors and its trunk were opened, and a man was standing guard by the driver's side door, his thumbs tapping at the screen of a cellphone. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing dark designs in ink that McCree couldn't identify from this distance. He was shorter than McCree, but had massive shoulders like a linebacker, and McCree was not about to underestimate his strength.

McCree moved around the corner, taking cover behind the SUV. The opened back entrance to the shop was behind him, all the lights on inside. He could have just walked right inside, but he knew his chances were better if there was one fewer person to deal with later, so he had to take this guy out first somehow. Without his gun, he felt useless. Thankfully, the guy was totally engrossed in his phone, only occasionally glancing up to check on the progression of the fire, so McCree had the element of surprise on his side. He continued to inch forward, his heart hammering in his chest. If the man turned around, McCree was easily visible. He didn't know what to do. He wasn't good at planning on his feet the way that Reyes had been.

There came a shout from inside.

The guard's eyes shot in his direction.

McCree panicked.

He lunged forward, gripping the man's head in his palm and shoving him backwards. Before McCree was even aware of what he was doing, his other hand had gone for the car door. The sound it made crashing into the man's skull was sickening, a wet thud that wouldn't be easily forgotten. His heavy body slumped into the street, blood and flesh and clumps of hair weeping down his temples.

McCree felt alive with adrenaline. His pulse was so fast that it was making him feel lightheaded. He wiped his hands on his jeans and reached for his phone in his pocket.

**@ rikimarucall the policr**

He sent the text to Genji and Zenyatta, silenced his phone, and pushed it back into his pocket as deep as it would go. He circled around the car and looked into the restaurant, but he could see nothing – anyone inside was down the short flight of stairs and around the corner, where the main seating area and the kitchen was. He had no idea how many people were inside, nor if they were armed. Genji and Hanzo both in separate conversations had told him that Japan's laws against carrying firearms were so strict that even criminals refused to use them. The police may look the other way while they bully other people and sell drugs or launder money, but their tolerance for guns was absolute zero. Trafficking weapons was not worth the risk anymore – there were not enough buyers, and none of them wanted to spend life in the infamously cruel Japanese prisons. So McCree had to just hope that Genji and Hanzo knew what they were talking about. It didn't make him feel any braver, though. Genji was more than capable of defeating McCree while he was armed, thanks to his skill with his blade, and McCree wasn't about to assume anything less from these people.

As he crouched down by the bumper and tried to plan, a pair of men became visible. They were coming from the stairs inside the restaurant, struggling to support the weight of a bulky black safe between them. They were exchanging harsh words as they stumbled and grunted. The thing probably weighed twice what either of them did or more.

McCree swallowed. So they _were_ taking money from this place. _Help me, damnit. Reyes. Morrison. Anyone._ But even the imaginary Hanzo in his head was silent now. All he could hear was his own heartbeat in his temples, and every one of his ragged breaths. How could he do anything without his gun?

They were making their way towards McCree, to load the safe into the trunk. He dove around the side of the car to stay hidden. He watched as they tried to lift the safe into the trunk. McCree glanced around as if he expected to find help, like a gun stupidly lying in the street, but the only thing within arm's reach was the body of the guard and his dropped cellphone. McCree grabbed it. The screen was still bright, displaying a conversation entirely in kanji characters that McCree couldn't have read in his wildest dreams. He threw it overhand, as hard as he could. The phone sailed over the car, over the heads of the two men with the safe, and clattered into the street, shattering into pieces.

Both men jumped, followed by wailing and shouting. McCree had no idea what had happened, but when he stood up to look around the car, he understood. The safe had been dropped in their surprise, crushing one of the men's feet, and he was curled against the bumper, howling and moaning in pain. They were going back and forth, arguing between each other, their volume growing with every word.

Since McCree's brain had no plan, he let his body take over. He dove forward, grabbing the standing man by his wrist in his metal prosthetic and twisting his arm behind his back. His other hand covered the man's mouth, muffling his cries. The man flailed in his grip, and his legs were powerful, kicking at McCree's shins. They staggered around the street, McCree nearly unable to control his wild thrashing. He shoved the man forward into the vehicle's trunk, both of them scrambling over his friend who was trying to climb off the ground with one leg.

McCree clenched his fist. It was effortless. The man's wrist did not stand a chance in his fingers. He felt the crunch of bones. The man was screaming in pain, holding his ruined, shattered wrist against his chest, and McCree knew his cover was blown. Anyone in a mile could have heard all the hollering. He threw the man forward into the car and slammed the trunk closed, trapping him inside.

No time to think. McCree turned to face the next threat, although he was still hopping around on one foot, more clown-like than threatening. McCree swept a leg out, kicking the man behind his good knee, and his whole body folded to the asphalt. His yells echoed through the abandoned streets. McCree fought the urge to laugh, but his humor was killed when the man lashed out. He hadn't seen the man pull out a weapon, but it had been idiotic of him to assume that the guy was completely unarmed. He plunged a knife deep into the meat of McCree's thigh. It wasn't a big or sharp knife, but it did its job. Pain shot through him, so severe and unexpected that he felt a punch of nausea in his gut. He reached to pull it out, his pant leg filling with blood, and the man grabbed for his arm. They grappled together, his fingertips digging into McCree's flesh for purchase. McCree turned the knife on the man, who pushed with all his strength to keep the blade away from his face. The knife was trapped between their shaking, clumsy hands, neither of them strong enough to overpower the other.

There was a sound behind McCree's head, so loud that it left his ears ringing. The clap of metal against metal.

McCree would have recognized that sound anywhere.

Both he and the other man stopped fighting over the knife, and McCree turned, very slowly.

“Drop it.”

He was staring down the barrel of a gun that had just been cocked. His eyes followed up the man's arm to his face. It was an unremarkable face but for a large mole where his jaw met his cheek. McCree had been faced with a gun more times than he could remember in life, but never unarmed, and he felt his blood turn to ice. Giving the man a nod, he released the blade. It was useless in a gun fight anyway.

The man at his feet scrambled for it.

Shit. Where was Genji? Where were the cops?

“I like your arm,” the man with the gun, who must have been Jinzaburo, said, “It looks strong.”

He spoke with a heavy accent, but his English was otherwise perfect. They stared, unblinking, at each other. Jinzaburo had dark, narrow eyes filled with malice. McCree was dumb with fear, his mouth so dry that even if he had been able to come up with words he wasn't sure he could have uttered them anyway. Around them, the whole world faded out of focus. The smoke from the car fire seemed to dissipate, the roar of flames became white noise. Even the man behind McCree, now armed with that knife, was little more than a shadow at his shoulder. McCree's whole world at that moment was the pistol and that hand gripping it.

“That was a compliment,” Jinzaburo said. He dragged the gun across McCree's face, caressing his sweating flesh with the cold metal.

It took all of McCree's strength not to flinch. “Th-thank you?” His only hope was to keep the guy talking until hopefully Genji or the police showed up.

“Yes,” Jinzaburo said, “I bet an arm that strong could easily open that safe, couldn't it?”

He reached down with his free left hand, grabbing McCree by the jaw. His fingers dug into his cheeks with enough strength to bruise him, and he turned McCree's head back towards the safe. It was still sitting on the street, where it had been dropped behind the SUV's bumper. McCree closed his eyes and shook his head. “It ain't that strong,” he lied, “I ain't got much control over it.”

The man with the knife began to shout something. “He says you're lying,” Jinzaburo translated, “You broke our friend's wrist.”

McCree was silent, dragging his tongue across his dry lips.

“Open the fucking safe!” He swung his arm, the butt of the gun cracking against McCree's temple, and McCree fell to the street. The agony was blinding, his whole head throbbing so badly that it drew tears to his eyes. He tried to pull himself back up to his feet, but everything was off. His vision swam before him, his limbs clumsy and slow. The muzzle was against his forehead, but through the fog of pain, he could not even feel fear.

A strange noise cut through the night. It was a quiet whirring, like the beat of an insect's wings. McCree didn't understand what was happening, his thoughts so slowed by the pain that he couldn't even recognize the very familiar sound, but then Jinzaburo was shouting, and the gun had dropped from his hand. McCree crawled to the gun, and when his palm wrapped around the weight of the pistol, adrenaline brought him some clairity. He raised it towards the man's face. Jinzaburo was wide-eyed, snarling, spittle flying from his teeth. Then McCree saw it. From his bicep, there protruded a single arrow.

McCree searched the rooftops. He had the sense not to call out a name.

Hanzo was there, standing on the shrine gate. His bow was drawn. McCree couldn't see his expression, but he had a feeling he wasn't happy to see him. McCree had never been so relieved. “Come down here!” he yelled up to him, “Please!”

Before Hanzo could respond, the wail of police sirens filled the streets. He was shoved aside, losing sight of Hanzo, as Jinzaburo made a dash for the car. The man threw opened the driver's door, stepping over the body of his fallen companion, but before he could climb in, a second arrow had been fired into his ankle, and he went down, howling like an animal. McCree felt a surge of pride at how good of a shot Hanzo was. He emptied the gun's round of bullets into the car tires, assuring that they were not going anywhere, and tossed it underneath the vehicle. The flashing lights of the police car had turned the corner now. McCree made eye contact with the driver for just a split-second, but when the cops jumped out of the car, their first concern was the man with the knife, who was waving it pathetically in their direction.

While the cops were distracted, McCree pulled himself to his feet and stumbled closer to the shrine. “C'mere, Hanzo,” he begged to the silhouette overhead. He opened his arms for him, inviting him back. His relief to see Hanzo was so overwhelming that he cried, an unstoppable stream of fat tears rolling down his cheeks. He hadn't cried so openly since he was a child. After everything that had happened, all he wanted was to be wrapped in Hanzo's arms and comforted. He had been scared shitless. He was in pain. He was so ready for this all to be over. “Please? I think I'm hurt.”

The worst part was that Hanzo did not even hesitate. He took a leap and was swallowed up by the darkness. McCree stared up at the spot where Hanzo had just stood, his mouth hanging opened. Hanzo had left him. This elaborate scheme had been for nothing. All the money he had spent, all the time he had wasted here, had also been for nothing. He had put his life in danger for no reason whatsoever.

 _I'm a fool,_ he thought.

There was no time to mourn. He hobbled through the dark streets, clinging to the sides of buildings for support. To anyone watching, he probably just looked like a drunk. Somehow, he made his way back to the _ryokan._ If anyone had asked him how, he wouldn't have been able to explain it. One moment he was leaving the shrine, sobbing at his rejection, and the next he was collapsing into his futon. He was almost afraid that he wouldn't wake up, that his head wound was severe enough to kill him in his sleep. If this was even sleep he was fading into. In some ways, it felt like death.

 

* * *

 

Some hours later, he _was_ still alive, and his first stupid thought was that physically he felt fantastic. He didn't understand - was he in a hospital? Had he been given some strong pain medication?

When he sat up and rubbed at his eyes, he saw Genji and Zenyatta in his room. It was daylight, the door opened to the courtyard, letting in humidity and birdsong. Genji was bent over his cellphone, reading aloud in Japanese from something on the screen. Noticing the movement of McCree waking up, Genji leaped across the room, urging McCree back into his futon. “Lay back!” he said, “My Master is a healer. Your wounds have been taken care of, but you still need to rest.”

“No, no,” McCree protested, “I feel fine." What a lie. He didn't feel fine at all. He'd never felt more heartbroken and desolate in his entire damn life.  "How'd you get here? What happened?”

Genji's eyes crinkled in one of his mouthless smiles. “It worked, Jesse! Everyone is talking about the mysterious cowboy vigilante who stopped the robbery at Rikimaru Ramen. There isn't a newspaper in the country that isn't talking about how the infamous criminal Jinzaburo was taken into custody. The manager would have died if you hadn't shown up when you did. People are speculating who you are, you're becoming a local sensation. This all went perfectly!"

“He lived?” It seemed like the only positive outcome to this mess.

“He did! And Jesse, there is no way that Hanzo would not have heard about this by now. He will know how hard we tried! He won't be able to say that we do not care about him.” Genji sounded so hopeful that McCree couldn't stand to tell him the truth. Hanzo had been on the scene, Hanzo knew all the details, and, still, he would not be coming back. McCree didn't even have the energy to force a smile and pretend to share Genji's optimism. “I think that we should call a cab and get back to the hotel in Shinjuku. That is where Hanzo will come looking for us.”

McCree stared up at the ceiling. He didn't think he could return to that hotel room where he and Hanzo had slept together. He wondered if Hanzo's long black hairs were still stuck to the pillows. He wondered if the parchment paper from their final breakfast together was still in the trash can. There was no way he was prepared to surround himself with those things again. It was torture. The idea sounded worse than facing that Jinzaburo bastard again. “Genji... I reckon it's best if I just go home.”

“ _What?_ ”

McCree glanced across the room at Zenyatta, as if somehow Zenyatta could help. Despite the lack of a face on the omnic, he had the distinct impression that Zenyatta was looking back at him with a look of total warmth and understanding. “I wana leave,” McCree said, “You 'n Zenyatta can stay and wait for Hanzo if you wana, but... I'm done.”

“Jesse. After everything, how can you just give up? I thought you said you loved him?”

"I do," McCree muttered, shrugging his shoulders, "I really do."

"Then how could you possibly leave now?"

“When the war is over, leaving the battlefield is not considered a retreat,” Zenyatta said, gliding across the room to take a seat next to Genji, “And I may have my own healing methods, but seeing a doctor would be best. I believe your friend Dr. Ziegler can help him better than I have.”

McCree was so grateful for Zenyatta that he could have wept.


	11. Key

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kind reviews. The feelings I got reading them was indescribable. I haven't posted fanfiction online in probably about 10 years, and this experience has made me want to start writing as a hobby again. You all are the best ; H ; 
> 
> I already have three new fics in the works - two un-related McHanzo stories (one a cowboy AU and the other a fairy tale AU - I don't know which to focus on next lol) and a Reaper76 fic. However I'm always willing to take requests and suggestions for pretty much any pairing, so feel free to reach out to me here or on tumblr!

Back on Gibraltar, McCree spent the first night in med bay. He was so overtired that he could barely stumble through the halls, his vision was fuzzy, and his stomach was so sensitive that even sipping at cold water made him want to vomit. Surely it was a side effect of his head injury. “It is just severe jet lag, Jesse,” Angela said, “This friend of Genji's is quite a skilled healer. I see no evidence of your wounds.” But she gave him a sleeping pill, saying the melatonin would help, and he was snoring before she could even turn out the lights and leave the room.

He knew that staying in Angela's care meant sanctuary, but he woke up late the next morning starving and feeling close to his old self, so there was no point in hiding in there forever. And, of course, as soon as he was back in his room unpacking his suitcase to dig out his favorite pair of sweatpants, in came a furious Winston, waving printed-out Japanese news articles in his face and scolding him about staying under the radar.

“Not now,” McCree moaned, “Can't you just be happy t'see me?”

Winston was not Gabriel Reyes or Jack Morrison, not even close. He lacked the qualities that made the both of them such natural-born leaders. However, Winston also lacked their negative traits; McCree was relieved when that dark, hairy face softened, and Winston slumped into a chair, nearly crushing the thing under his weight. “I am,” he said, reaching to place the papers on McCree's nightstand. He studied McCree for a moment, taking in the circles under his eyes and the additional scruff on his cheeks and jaw. Deciding that it wasn't worth it to scold McCree for the vigilante work (at least not until later,) he changed the subject: “So, did you end up meeting Genji's brother?”

McCree cringed. “Y-yeah. But he won't be coming to join us.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Genji is disappointed, I'm sure. What was he like?”

What was he like? What a question! McCree took a deep breath and made an attempt to mentally travel back in time to those days spent in Hanzo's company. “He's real serious all the time, always got this look on his face, mean as a snake. But he's smart, too. Even you'd think so, Big Guy. He has this bow, he could pierce a man dead in the heart from a mile away on a clear day. Best shot I've ever seen. I never met anyone who acted so high and mighty that wasn't just all talk, y'know? But he's a real force to be reckoned with. Genji was right about him. He ain't friendly at all, but he would've been an asset to our team.”

“I must admit, Jesse, no one here is going to be too sorry to hear that he won't be joining. What he did to Genji...”

“Stop,” McCree said, silencing Winston by holding out his hand, “ _Please_. Hanzo ain't a monster. He's spent the last decade repentin' for what happened. Both of em, Genji _and_ Hanzo, they've had a hard life. Genji's found peace now, y'know, but Hanzo hasn't. His heart's all dark and sad and... Winston, I would have done anythin' to give Hanzo some peace. _Anything._ ”

The discussion that had felt so cathartic at first had been soured, and it became too painful for McCree to continue, so he distracted himself by emptying his suitcases out on the floor, sorting everything into piles. One pile of souvenirs to share with the others. One pile of toiletries to store in the bathroom. A pile of dirty clothes to haul to the laundry and a pile of stuff that was clean and could go back in his drawers. After a moment, Winston cleared his throat. “Are you okay? Want to talk about it?”

“I think not, _amigo._ Maybe in a day or two?”

“Sure. Is there anything I can do?”

McCree grinned. “You can help me carry this bag full o' gifts into the rec room.” He shuffled the souvenirs into one of his two suitcases and passed it over to Winston, who was happy to oblige. McCree was still feeling a little groggy, so he was glad for the extra pair of very large and very strong hands.

They headed to the rec room together in companionable silence. Mei-Ling Zhou was seated on the sofa, still in her pajamas, eating a cup of noodles. Brigitte sat beside her, watching something on the television, with Bastion settled between them on the floor. McCree hadn't known Mei at all before the recall; to his knowledge, she had been off at like the North or South Pole working as a climatologist. She perked up at the sight of him, though, as if they had been old friends. “How was your trip to Tokyo?” she asked.

“It was fun,” McCree said. He had Winston drop his suitcase on the table and he unzipped it, revealing all of the prizes he had won from the arcade. “Y'all get first pick of souvenirs.”

Once they had all dug through the loot to make their selections - even Bastion coming forward to claim a round plush of a fat, adorable bird - McCree opened the bag of cheesecake flavored Kitkat bars and dropped next to Winston on the second couch, passing out samples while he started describing his trip. Winston, Mei, and Brigitte hung onto his every word, while Bastion squished the toy in his metal fingers, totally distracted. It occurred to him, sometime during his explanation of the complicated smart toilets, while Brigitte cackled at his anecdote of pressing the wrong button during his first use and accidentally turning on the shockingly powerful bidet, that he was feeling better. Not just physically, but in his head. He'd always miss Hanzo, but life would move on, just as it had after Ana's death, and then the double blow of losing Reyes and Morrison. The worst part was knowing that life wouldn't be so kind to Hanzo. He was still out there, probably more bitter than ever, and totally alone.

_I might just be the happiest man alive..._

_I am happy as well..._

All McCree could do was hope that somehow Hanzo found happiness again. He deserved it. _I wish the dragon love,_ McCree remembered. And he realized that he wanted his wish now more than ever. Whatever Goddess or spirit or Japanese deity took those wishes in, McCree hoped with his whole heart that his wish was granted. Give Hanzo peace. Give Hanzo happiness. Make him able to love someone again.

After dinner that night, Brigitte came to his room to let him know that Genji was on the phone for him. McCree shook his head. The last person on the planet that he felt like talking to at that moment was Genji. “Tell him I'm already asleep,” he told her.

He wished he was. His body felt physically exhausted, but his brain was awake. He wanted to be roaming the streets of Shinjuku, smashing buttons of flashing lights in the arcade, cheering and clinking glasses of beer with businessmen in bars. What was Genji doing there right now with Zenyatta? He checked the clock. It must have been about four in the morning over there. No. Genji likely wasn't doing any of those things. But Hanzo... what was Hanzo doing over in Tokyo at this moment? As his thoughts turned to Hanzo, he knew it was time to see Angela again. When he knocked on the door to her room, she was wearing a fluffy white robe and a thick spread of drying mud caked on her face. She apologized, explained that she was getting ready for bed, and unlocked the med bay, the next door over, to grab another sleeping pill for him.

No amount of rest that he got that night or the following day helped his internal clock set straight. Angela assured him it was normal after flights so long that entire days were jumbled, there was nothing to worry about, but night three was more of the same. He laid awake in bed until very late, tossing and turning, his mind still stuck in Tokyo. He was no stranger to jet lag, but he had never experienced any quite so bad before. By the time he gave up, he knew he couldn't go ask Angela for a pill, because she was bound to be sound asleep at that hour. If they were at any of the other Overwatch bases, he might have been able to walk up the street to a pharmacy and find some over-the-counter stuff, but Gibraltar was so damn isolated. Half of their supplies required a boat trip to the mainland to procure. He tried reading the articles about the thwarted ramen shop robbery that Winston had left on his nightstand the night before, but they just stirred up his anxiety. He headed to take a long, steaming shower – his first since returning back home - and while it relaxed him, he was no closer to slumber than he had been before. Eventually, his whole body restless from trying to lie still for so long, he pulled himself out of bed and decided to see if the fresh ocean air and a cigar would calm him.

As he passed the rec room, though, a voice called out to him - “Where are you going at this hour, Jesse McCree?”

Lena was seated in front of the computer monitor, the glow of her chronal accelerator showing through her pajamas. She was on a video call with Emily, who waved at McCree through the screen. McCree smiled back at her, although his appearance was so haggard that there was nothing warm or friendly about it. Lena grimaced. “Let me call you right back, doll,” she said to Emily, who nodded and ended the conversation with a click of a button.

Lena spun in the swivel chair to face McCree. “You look down, love. Wanna talk about it?”

“You didn't have to hang up,” McCree muttered, scratching the back of his neck through his tangled hair, “I'm just heading outside for a smoke.”

“Y'know,” she said, “If there's anything on your mind, you can always talk to me. We've all noticed you've been out of sorts since you got back. Did something happen between you and Genji-kun? He's been calling for you all day, you know!”

McCree knew Genji had been calling for him, but he just wasn't ready to talk to him yet. These people back at home, who had no idea he had fallen for Genji's brother, were easy to distract himself with. But Genji knew all the details, and Genji was his co-conspirator in the elaborate plan that had massively failed. It was embarrassing just thinking about talking to him on the phone right now. He hoped Genji stayed back in Japan for a week at least. Maybe then he could face what had happened. Forcing a grin for Lena, he shook his head. “No. Genji's a good guy. This's just a bit o' post-vacation blues, Miss Oxton. Ain't nothin' worth talkin' about.”

He blinked, and Lena was standing before him, taking him by the hands and trying to pull him towards the couch. “Then let's watch some telly, Jess. It's better for you than smoking.”

“No, no,” he laughed, pulling his arms away from her, “I'm fine. I swear. Besides, I don't wanna keep you from Miss Emily...”

“Oh, don't worry about her. She'd understand. We were about to sign off for the night anyway. C'mon~”

McCree dodged her hand as she tried to reach for him a second time. “No, no. I'm steppin' out for just a second and headin' back to bed. Go ahead and call her back. Tell her I said she's got some souvenirs with her name on 'em if she ever comes 'round to visit.”

In another blink of his eyes, Lena was back in the chair at the computer, her long legs folded up underneath her, her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. “If you're sure, love. But I hate seeing you look so down.”

McCree nodded and turned to leave, but he paused in the doorway, gripping the frame with one hand. “Do... do you miss her? Emliy. When you're here?”

“Course I do,” Lena said, “But we make it work. She visits when she can, and we still talk every day.” She turned her head, studying McCree very carefully, as if the answers to his mood were written there plainly for her to read. “While you were on vacation... did you fall in love with Genji?”

“ _What!_ ” McCree exploded with a burst of laughter. He doubled over, gripping his knees, chuckling at the floor until there were tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. “Bless your heart, Lena, _no_!”

“Okay, I was wrong!” Lena said, but she began to laugh with him, and McCree had to admit that it felt good.

“Genji's a good friend, but no... we ain't like that. Genji'll get a kick out of this,” he said, still laughing, rubbing the tears away with his knuckles, “You go back to Emily. I'm gonna be okay. Thanks, Lena.” Before she could stop him, he hurried on his way. Their conversation had improved his mood a lot, and he figured after a cigar he may actually, finally be able to get some shut-eye.

Outside, the night was warm and the ocean was quiet. It was a new moon, but the absence of her glow just made the stars seem all the brighter. The groups of buildings were dark, even the lights in Torbjorn's workshop were out, just further improving the view overhead. He felt like he was the only soul awake on the entire island. It wasn't true; obviously Lena was up, and Winston was probably pounding away at his keyboards with a jar of peanut butter in his lap, but the high-tech insides of their old base felt like a different world entirely from this serene seascape. McCree strolled out, beyond the buildings, and settled down in the grass. He ran his hands through the wild blades, feeling them scratch against his palms and getting dirt under his fingernails. The smell of the earth and the sea filled his lungs as he sighed.

This was where it had all started, those weeks ago. Here was where he had, for some stupid reason, volunteered to go to Japan with Genji. Did he regret it? He wasn't sure. In some ways, he did, because losing Hanzo left him feeling like he had lost some spark in himself. But the time he had spent over there was also some of the best days of his life. It was hard to regret it too much.

He fumbled in his pockets for his matchbook and a cigar. The breeze that tousled his hair was gentle, but enough to make keeping his match lit a struggle. He shielded the light with a cupped palm, trying to guide it to the cigar in his lips, wishing he had an extra hand.

A sharp sound hissed through the silence and the cigar was torn from his mouth, enough force that for a moment his head seemed to be spinning on his shoulders. “What the _fuck_?” He jumped to his feet, scanning the area, but the base was as still as before, although McCree felt an itch creeping across his skin – the feeling of eyes watching him from the darkness. He wanted to believe that he was being paranoid. Maybe a seagull had snatched his cigar, although the idea was laughable. He wasn't blind; there was no way he could have missed being dive-bombed by a bird. His next thought was that it had to be a prank, done by one of his friends. It couldn't have been anything else. Even though Overwatch was no longer supposed to be operating here, Watchpoint Gibraltar was still a secure base. None of the average people who lived on the other side of the island could have just climbed up the rock and sauntered across the tarmac. Even if someone had been strong enough to somehow scale the sheer rock's face, Athena had eyes absolutely everywhere.

McCree scrambled in the direction his cigar had flown, but when he spotted it in the grass, his heart plummeted into his stomach. He fell to his knees.

The cigar was pinned into the dirt by a single, perfectly-aimed arrow.

“I hate to kiss you after you have smoked,” a voice behind him said.

McCree turned around, although he didn't need to. He could have recognized that voice anywhere. “Who said I wanna kiss you after all you put me through?” he asked. But his mouth was curled into a crooked smile, and Hanzo knelt down in the grass beside him, cupping his face in his hands. McCree's heart was beating so hard it felt like it was knocking his lungs out of whack, making it impossible to catch his breath. He had a thousand questions. When and how had Hanzo come? Why had he changed his mind? What if his shot had _missed?_ His emotions were in knots; he was so hurt and angry and ashamed and _sad_.

McCree closed the gap between them, locking his arms around the other man's shoulders and drawing him in against his chest. Hanzo turned his face up to McCree, who smothered him with kisses wherever he could reach – his ears, his temples, his eyes, his nose, his throat, his shoulders. Hanzo endured it for a moment, tilting his head into the heat of McCree's mouth, but then he stopped the frantic, sloppy kisses by gripping McCreen's face in both hands, the fur of his cheeks tickling his palms, and for a breathless moment they sat just staring into each other's eyes.

Everything was perfectly silent, as if even their breathing and heartbeats had stopped. McCree was being pulled into the void of Hanzo's dark, intense gaze. Time passed strangely. He had no sense of how long they knelt in the grass just studying each other's flushed faces. It might have been the space of time between two heartbeats, or it may have been an eternity. He understood, in that epochal span of time, that nothing needed to be said. No apologies. No explanations. Their bodies and souls were communicating on a level beyond spoken words. It was such a powerful, electric feeling between them that he felt tears of happiness stinging his eyes, but before he could shed even one of them, Hanzo leaned in. McCree's sense of sound returned at deafening volumes – he could hear Hanzo sighing against his mouth as their lips parted, their twin pulses, his own whimpers. The sea beneath them, barely a whisper before, was now a roar in his ears. When their tongues touched, the ebb and flow of the waves seemed to mirror the rhythm of their kiss; one sweep of Hanzo's tongue stole his breath away, the next returned his breath to him.

“Please,” he moaned, and the syllable was swallowed by Hanzo. The kisses were white-hot, piercing, heaven-sent, just like the bolts of lightning tattooed across his arm. McCree could hardly keep up with the violence of them, and Hanzo did not relent, even as McCree was aware of being guided back into the grass. Hanzo's hand moved behind his head to cushion the impact, an act of tenderness that had McCree melting into the dirt.

“Hanzo...” he murmured, trying to dodge Hanzo's teeth and tongue so that he could voice the singular question lingering in his conscience. When Hanzo would not stop, he took the man's cheeks in his palms and pushed him away. Their faces were so close that he couldn't even meet Hanzo's eyes, so he just closed his own, relishing Hanzo's hot breaths against his skin. His thumb traced over Hanzo's plump, wet lips. “Hanzo, just one thing. One question. Are you here to stay? I just need to know...”

Hanzo pressed the lightest of kisses to McCree's eyelids, and McCree trembled beneath him. In everything that had happened between them, McCree couldn't remember Hanzo doing anything so outwardly tender. “I cannot promise that I will not leave you again,” he whispered, the words slipping across McCree's face like caresses, “but I _can_ promise that, as long as you want me, I will _always_ return.”

Somehow, those words were better than anything McCree had hoped for. The snarl of anxieties that his emotions had been woven into inside of his chest was unraveled. He guided Hanzo's face back to his and went in possessively, because now, for the first time, he truly felt that Hanzo's lips were _his_ to kiss.

Mouths locked together, their bodies rolled against one another in the grass, the friction making McCree shudder and moan for more. Hanzo was quick to oblige him, his hands roaming down to fumble at McCree's fly. McCree reached up, tugging the ribbon from Hanzo's hair, and as it fell around Hanzo's shoulders, McCree freed his mouth to lean back and admire the way it caught the starlight. He only held that glimpse of Hanzo and the backdrop of stars for a single heartbeat before Hanzo's palm was wrapped around his cock, and the searing heat had McCree throwing his head back and sobbing into the night.

This was foolish. Not only could anyone walk out here and catch them at any moment, but he had no idea where they were in regards to Athena's surveillance cameras. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if the whole base was awake and gathered around one of the monitors right now to watch this spectacle. He wasn't given much time to worry about that, though, because he felt the touch of silk against his face and then Hanzo was tying his ribbon over his eyes. McCree smirked as his sight was robbed from him, and he thrashed playfully under Hanzo's weight. “What're you playin' at, Darlin'?” he asked.

Hanzo silenced him with a kiss and then he moved off of McCree entirely. McCree lay there quivering in the grass, feeling the back of his shirt grow damp from the cool earth. He could sense Hanzo moving around him, and not knowing where he was or what he was doing had McCree's heart stuttering. Then Hanzo's hands were on his legs, tugging his pants off. McCree tried to help him, but without his vision he felt helpless. This all made him so aroused that by the time Hanzo's hands finally touched the flesh of his thighs, parting them, McCree was already rock-hard.

“I wana be able to see you,” he protested, raising a hand to lift the ribbon from his eyes, but Hanzo grabbed his wrist and pushed it away.

“If I had another, I would tie it over your mouth so that I did not have to hear you complain,” Hanzo teased him, but then he soothed him with more kisses. Each one was so soft that McCree felt his skin break out in goosebumps. “Relax. I wish to repay you for all you have done for me.”

“You don't gotta repay me for nothin',” McCree said, “I did it cuz I wanted you back. I love you.”

“I know you do.”

McCree swallowed. He shifted in the grass, wondering where Hanzo's hands were since they were not on him. He also wondered if his cheeks looked as red as they felt. “D'you.. love me?”

“Would I have come here at all if I did not?”

Hanzo pushed into him, and McCree's back arched off the ground, his nails scraping through the dirt. He hadn't been prepared at all, and even though Hanzo had slicked himself with something – likely spit – the first thing he felt was a shoot of pain through his nerves. Hanzo was hunched over him, panting against his throat, and McCree raised his arms, gripping the rolling muscles of his back through the fabric of his shirt. As their bodies rocked together in a frenzy, layers of discomfort were peeled back until all he felt was a white-hot ball of ecstasy at his core.

The first time had been rough and desperate, even perhaps a little awkward in how eager they had been, but this was different and McCree couldn't figure out why. Maybe because the first time had been something they both _wanted_ whereas this felt more like something they both _needed._ The pleasure Hanzo built up with him, this burning oblivion, was absolute salvation. The way Angela could heal him after a battle was nothing compared to this; this was healing his _soul_. He felt so good, so relieved, so at bliss that all he could do was cling to Hanzo and tremble, his breath coming in ragged sobs.

It was over so fast. Hanzo came silently; McCree might not have even known he was done if not for the wetness that filled him, trickling between his thighs. He could hear Hanzo panting over the sound of the surf, and he raised shaking fingers to lift the ribbon off his eyes, but Hanzo shoved his hand back down. He opened his mouth to complain, but Hanzo's fingertips brushed over his lips, shushing him.

Hanzo had his cock in one fist, and McCree felt every hair on his body stand up in anticipation of what might come next. When he found himself being guided into Hanzo's warm, wet mouth, the bliss had him spasming, his heels digging into the grass. Hanzo was ravenous for him, and McCree had not been expecting how aggressive his lips could be. Hanzo's name rolled off his tongue again and again, the only thing his brain could latch onto through the fog of rapture. His hands grabbed into Hanzo's hair, finding his scalp and neck dewy from exertion, and he drew him in closer and deeper. The pleasure grew in him until he was certain it would kill him, tear him apart from the inside out. It was nearly agony.

He arched off the ground, moaning as his body tensed and he emptied himself into Hanzo's throat. Hanzo still did not stop, sucking him until he had shot every last thread, until the tightness of his lips and the heat of his tongue were too much for McCree to take. It was severe, some of the worst pain and simultaneously best pleasure. He nearly kicked Hanzo off of him in his thrashing. When, finally, Hanzo relented, McCree was whimpering, half-dead in the grass. Aftershocks of his orgasm continued to ripple through his limbs.

He began to laugh. Softly, breathlessly.

“Jesse, I need to give you something,” Hanzo said. It was so sudden that McCree only laughed some more.

“Darlin', I think you've given me enough for one night."

“No, really.”

He was aware of Hanzo shuffling around. He couldn't think of anything Hanzo might be giving him. His first idiot thought was that maybe Hanzo was about to propose. What the hell would he say? They'd only known each other a couple of weeks! Oh, who was he kidding? Right now there was no way he could say no.

“Open your hand.”

McCree lifted his arm and turned his hand palm-up. Hanzo placed something small and cool in his fingers. He slipped the ribbon off and pressed a kiss to McCree's panting mouth. McCree could taste himself on Hanzo's tongue. For a moment, when he opened his eyes, he just looked up at Hanzo. He was red-faced, drenched in sweat. The blanket of stars behind him was nothing compared to his beauty. It was a few breathless seconds before he could even tear his gaze away and look down at what Hanzo had given him.

“What is this?” he asked.

Hanzo had been stuffing himself back into his pants, but he stopped to shoot McCree a sharp look. “What does it look like?”

McCree stared, as if he expected it to transform before his eyes into something he could better understand. When it did not, he replied, “It's a key.” Small and bronze, with a round bow and tiny, nubby teeth. He had seen it before. “Is this the key from Enoshima?”

Hanzo nodded and sat on his legs beside McCree. His expression had become very solemn. “You did not drop it. When we kissed, I took it from your hand.”

“Why?”

It didn't seem that big of a deal to McCree, but Hanzo looked uncomfortable about his admission. “I did not plan to see you again. I wanted to keep it as a memento of you. As fond as I was of you, I knew I never would have abandoned my quest for redemption. And, to be honest, when we fought, I considered going back to Enoshima to remove the padlock. I want you to have it now, because no matter how angry I might get with you in the future, I never want to feel tempted to unlock it again.”

So Hanzo had lied to him about joining Overwatch? Is that what he was saying? He felt that he had a right to be angry, considering how pissed Hanzo had been when it turned out McCree had been dishonest, but it was pointless to feel that way, when Hanzo was here now. McCree stood up and pulled his pants back on. Then he reached out his other hand to hoist Hanzo to his feet.

“Then let's throw it out like we're s'posed to,” McCree said. He pressed the key into Hanzo's palm and stepped behind him. Hanzo froze, unsure of what McCree could be doing at his back, but then McCree was combing his fingers through Hanzo's hair. Hanzo released the breath he had been holding and closed his eyes, enjoying how gentle his hands were. McCree pulled his hair back, out of his face, and tied it in the yellow ribbon once more. When he turned Hanzo to face him, Hanzo was smiling, and he leaned up to meet McCree's mouth for a kiss.

Side-by-side, they walked to the edge of the cliff, coming to stand on the rocks that overlooked the sheer drop down to the sea. Without moonlight, it was a vast black mass. The only way they could tell the waters were there, and it was not just a continuation of the night sky, was the hiss and roar of the tide. McCree slipped his arm around Hanzo's waist, drawing him in tight against him. Hanzo let his head drop against McCree's shoulder.

“Are you happy?” McCree asked.

Hanzo raised his arm and threw, overhanded. They watched as the key soared over the edge, up first, as if born by invisible wings. It caught the starlight, sparking like a silent firework, and for one still, breathless moment time seemed to slow down before it plummeted out of view, consumed by the dark night.

“You got your wish,” Hanzo answered and nuzzled into McCree's chest.

 


End file.
